


Alter Ego (Jack X Reader X Anti)

by Liv4Writing



Category: Antisepticeye - Fandom, JSE, Youtubers, jacksepticeye, sean mclaughlin - Fandom, youtube - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Ireland, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-25 22:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 38,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liv4Writing/pseuds/Liv4Writing
Summary: Looking for a new start to your life, you move to Athlone, Ireland to live with your best friend and favorite YouTuber, Jacksepticeye. You've had a long-time crush on the overly energetic Irishman with the green hair, and he makes it his personal goal to always keep you smiling. But Jack is hiding a secret, and it comes with a name: Anti. Jack's alter ego is something that you're not quite prepared for, and in more ways than one. Will you learn to love the dark side of Jack and the new world that comes with him?  And will you stick by the gamer that you love, no matter what the cost?





	1. Athlone At Night

**Author's Note:**

> **(A/N): I've never been to Ireland. (Although I will be going this summer!) Please forgive any geographical or setting errors! The Athlone that I've portrayed here is based solely off of pictures and the images created in my head.**

You yawned and walked along the quiet street, enjoying the feel of the warm breeze against your bare shoulders. It was mid-summer in Athlone, Ireland, and the golden streetlights cast a soft glow on the River Shannon. You'd only been living here for a few years, and you still hadn't grown used to the mystical feel of the city at night. You'd been out late at the library researching universities and meeting with a few college professors who were visiting Athlone.  
After graduating high school, you'd been a bit of a wreck, unsure about where you wanted to go and what you wanted to do with your life. Your parents were unusually generous and understanding, but their patience with your indecisiveness would only last for so long.  
You knew you wanted to travel, but you needed a solid job and a good education first. Or you needed to find someone you could stay with while you figured out your life.  
You'd met Sean McLoughlin through YouTube. You'd been watching his channel, Jacksepticeye, for years and were persistent in leaving comments on his videos and sending fan letters. One day, he responded back, and the two of you managed to form a long-distance friendship.  
While you were panicking about your life and future, you decided to give him a call and see if there were any inexpensive places to rent in Ireland. It was something different from America, a new start, and it was exactly the place you needed to go to figure out who you truly were.  
Jack- you'd always called him by his YouTube name, and he didn't seem to mind- went way beyond what you expected of him and offered for you to stay in his apartment.  
You refused adamantly, feeling like staying with someone else would just make you more dependent.  
"C'mon, Jack," you had said. "You know I'd love to stay with you, but I just can't put that responsibility on you." "You won't be my responsibility, (Y/N)," he had insisted. "You're an adult, and you know I'll treat you like one. And you have a driver's license! If I let you live with me, then you drive me places. There. That's our trade-off."  
It had been a tempting offer, and one that you accepted. You were now 21 years old, and had graduated high school about three years ago. It was much longer than you'd intended to stay with Jack, but he'd never given the impression that you were unwelcome. "I didn't know what I wanted to do in college, either," he liked to tell you. "I was studying hotel management, for God's sake! It's better to take your time and decide what you really love."  
You'd recently started researching again, but so far you weren't sold on any particular place.  
You took the apartment steps slowly and unlocked Jack's door with your key. Your key was painted with green glitter, and you'd made Jack a little Septiceye Sam sticker for his. You'd been a fan first before a friend, and you had a bit of a crush on him. You had tried to get over it, but the fact that he could still fluster you was embarrassing.  
"Jack! Hi, I'm home! Sorry I was out late! ...Again," you called. You paused and listened. Jack usually filmed games during the day, but he liked to play on his own time at night.  
You could just make out the muffled sounds of a game, probably filtering out from his headphones.  
You tiptoed over to his recording room and peered inside. He was focused intensely on the screen, the images reflecting in his bright blue eyes. He was so different when he played games by himself- quiet and concentrated. Although you loved loud and goofy Jack, seeing him like this took your breath away for some reason. You squinted at the screen, trying to make out what he was playing. Was that... Trico? The Last Guardian was one of your favorite games. You couldn't stand it a second longer.  
"JACK!" you shouted, forgetting for the moment that your neighbors might be asleep.  
Jack gave a little shout and jumped up, his headphones falling around his neck. "Jesus, (Y/N)!" You giggled. "Sorry. I saw Trico and I just couldn't help myself." A smile quickly overtook Jack's startled expression.  
"I missed the game so much that I wanted to play some of it again. Join me?" "Of course!" You went to pull a chair up next to Jack's desk, but he tilted his head, motioning you over to him. "Just sit here." He sat back in his swivel chair, leaving enough room for you to sit in front of him. You were glad that the room was dark- your face was heating up. "Oh, yeah. Okay." You sat down and leaned back against him with a sigh. "You okay?" Jack asked, his stubble tickling your ear. "I was going to ask if you wanted to play..." You shook your head. "It's been a long day. I'll just watch you." Jack maneuvered his arms around you so that he could reach the computer. He continued playing, going slowly and spending a lot of time petting Trico so that he could talk to you.  
"Any luck today?" he asked, obviously referring to your college research. You sighed. "I dunno. Maybe. There's a few campuses that I like, even some here in Ireland, but it doesn't help that I don't know what I want to do. I haven't found my passion yet, and I don't want to do something just because it pays well or because it's my last resort. How did you know what you wanted to do?"  
"I just do what I love, (Y/N), you know that. I've always loved games, and people, and YouTube, and I just put it all together."  
"But I don't love anything like that," you pointed out. "That's not true. You like games," Jack said. You nodded. "But I can't be a YouTuber." "A game designer, then?" he suggested. You shrugged. "Maybe. Can we talk about something else for a little while?" Jack grunted slightly in response- he'd come to an intense moment in the game in which Trico had to fight off a number of guards.  
You paused to let him finish, and then took the controller for a while so he could talk.  
"Well, I had an okay day today," Jack started. "I really like the game Oxenfree and it seems to be getting good reception from the viewers." You nodded. "I like it too." "But I always have to be thinking about what to do next," he continued. "I don't ever want to disappoint them." You froze and, on a whim, paused the game. Jack turned to look at you in surprise. "Hey! What's wrong?"  
"I can't believe you would think that. Your fans love you. Sure, there are haters, but there will always be. You really love what you do, and they know you try hard to make them happy, so they'll never be mad at you for playing a game that they don't particularly like. Your energy, your love for the games- it's contagious. For a lot of fans, the YouTubers draw them to the games, and not vice versa."  
You looked away when you finished, unable to stand the intensity of Jack's wide eyes locked on yours. "Thank you," Jack finally said after a moment of comfortable silence. "You always know how to make me feel better. I hope the other viewers feel that way, too."  
"They do. Most of them just don't get the chance to tell you," you replied.  
Jack tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, and you tried not to think too hard about the absent-minded gesture. You unpaused the game and continued playing, Jack helping you through a couple scenes of pure puzzle-solving.  
"Ah!" he said suddenly, and you jumped a bit in your seat. "What?"  
"It's getting late," he said quickly, and you glanced at the clock on Jack's PC. "Yeah. 11:50. But why are you so weird at getting to bed around midnight? Does it really matter? Have you never stayed up until midnight on New Year's Eve?" Jack stood up and gave you a look. You paused the game again and held up your hands in surrender. "Sorry. I know it's not really my business, I just don't get it."  
"No, it's not that, it's just-" Jack looked frustrated. "It's probably because I'm so energetic making games during the day, I start feeling sick if I go to sleep too late. Headaches and stuff." You shrugged. "I guess. But it's always a few minutes before midnight." You grinned. "Are you secretly Cinderella? You don't want to lose your glass slippers?"  
Jack shoved you playfully. "I'll see you in the morning, (Y/N), okay?"  
"Yea, whatever," you called, as he headed to his bedroom. "But I'll have turned back into a mouse by then!"  
You'd always respected Jack's privacy, especially since you were living in his house. But you just couldn't comprehend the whole "in-bed-before-midnight" thing. He'd started this recently, maybe a few months ago, making some claims about getting more rest. You didn't buy it. You didn't care what he did late at night, or even if he wanted to go somewhere else- he was a grown man, and you weren't his mother. But why would he keep it a secret from you? What did your green-haired gamer have to hide?


	2. Neon Spies

You awoke to a strange whirring noise and the flash of a blue light against your eyelids.  
You lifted your head slowly, yawning, an uncomfortable cramp in your neck. You'd fallen asleep on top of Jack's computer, and since you tended to toss and turn in your sleep, you'd probably pressed a few buttons and confused the poor thing. As soon as you removed your head from the keyboard, the computer gave out a loud _ding_ and returned to the save screen for The Last Guardian. You sighed in relief. Games were Jack's life, and you did not want to be held responsible for breaking his computer.  
The next thing you noticed was the fluffy blanket draped over your shoulders.  
You stood quickly, wrapping the blanket around you like a robe. "Jack?" you called.  
"Yea?" he shouted from the kitchen.  
You approached him quietly, his back to you, to find him looking over some videos on a small laptop.  
"What are you doing?" you asked, and he whipped around suddenly. "Stop sneaking up on me, you ninja!" he said, closing the laptop and grinning at you. You shook your head. "You play too many horror games," you teased. "So do you," he shot back. "Speaking of... Why did you let me fall asleep in there? Didn't you need to get on to your computer this morning?" You shook the blanket at Jack accusingly. Jack shrugged. "It was a late night last night, and it was so cute that you fell asleep playing the game. It was like Trico was watching over you while you slept. I didn't want to wake you up, so I just did some editing on this today." He motioned to the small laptop. "Just a couple things. Robin will do the rest."  
Jack stood and stretched, his shirt riding up, and you tried to look away.  
"Are you doing anything today?" Jack asked, moving further into the kitchen and poking around in the pantry. You rolled your eyes at him good-naturedly as he pulled out a box of cookies. Only Jacksepticeye would eat cookies for breakfast. "What?!" Jack asked, catching your look. "I had an egg earlier!"  
"Okay, okay. I love cookies too, I'm not judging." You paused, considering his first question. "Actually, no. I'm off of work today." You worked at a small book store within walking distance of Jack's apartment. You refused to work anywhere boring, so it was a miracle when a position opened up in the little book shop.  
"Why, was there something you had in mind?" you asked Jack, envisioning more of The Last Guardian and maybe some other games, too. Jack stepped close to you, his usual energetic bounce in his step, and put his hands on your shoulders. He stood only a few inches taller than you, so you were looking almost directly into those ocean-blue eyes. "Yea! I have something really cool planned, actually, but it's a surprise. It's almost better than video games." Your jaw dropped. "I never thought I'd hear you say that!" "Well, that's because it's almost the same thing."  
You squinted your eyes at him. "Are you taking me to an arcade?" "Cool idea! But, uh, no."  
"Um, an amusement park? A carnival of some kind?"  
Jack placed his fingers underneath your chin and tilted your face slightly towards him. "No. C'mon, (Y/N), what kind of nerd do you think I am? It's better than that! Keep guessing!"  
He let go of you and bounced away, back to his box of cookies. You blinked a few times to clear the cloud in your mind. Was he flirting with you on purpose, or was that just his personality? You still couldn't figure him out.  
"There is one condition, though," Jack added, offering you a cookie, which you happily accepted.  
"And what's that?"  
"You have to wear neon."  
"Neon...?" You froze. "You better not be taking me to a club or a dance, because I cannot dance!"  
"Heeeey, you don't want to dance with me?" Jack whined. You stared at him in horror until he grinned at you. "I'm just kidding. It's not a dance, (Y/N)."  
His smile was so genuine that soon you were grinning, too. "Ack!" you protested, looking away. "How do you manage to spread happiness like that?" "It's not a bad thing to spread happiness," Jack said. "No, it's the best thing, it's just- your smiles are contagious. Whenever you smile, I smile, and it feels like I'm losing a staring contest. One day I will keep a straight face." Jack turned and smirked at you again. You smiled back. "Damn it!"  
"Well, (Y/N), you're out of guesses and we don't want to be late for the surprise. Do you have something neon or not?" "Yea, yea, I'll dig something up." You started to head to your room. "(Y/N)!" Jack called. "Whaaaat?"  
"Just so you know, it's my goal to make you smile. And I won't fail!"

You found a neon-yellow shirt at the back of your closet. It was old, but not out of style, and you threw your hair up in a sloppy bun. There. Ready to go. Hopefully Jack's "surprise" wasn't too formal.  
Jack was wearing a neon orange hoodie. "Wait!" he exclaimed when he saw you. "You need one last thing."  
He produced a sheet of neon star stickers, and stuck one on your cheek. "Hey!" you giggled in surprise, snatching them and sticking one on his forehead. The two of you kept stealing the sheet from each other until you each had about three or four stars covering your face and arms. "Okay. Perfect. Let's go," you said, grabbing your car keys and following Jack outside. Jack usually let you pick the music when you drove him places, so you plugged in your iPod with an aux cord and played your Undertale playlist.  
"I hope you're ready to give me directions because I'm kind of driving blind here," you said. "Yep. Just think of me as your GPS." Jack put on his best Siri voice. "Turn right in, like, five seconds."  
Jack continued giving you directions, tying out different character voices and accents. "Take the next exit left, y'all!" he said, clearly trying to do a southern American accent. "Hey! Don't make fun of me! I'm not even from the south!" you said. "Just be Jack."  
"Well, okay. Top of the mornin' to ya (Y/N)! GO LEFT!" he shouted, over-doing his Irish accent. You reached over and punched him playfully in the arm. "Ow!"  
After a few more minutes of driving, you noticed that Jack had grown fairly silent. You looked over in concern. His eyes were closed and he was resting his head in his hand. "Hey. Are you okay? You don't look that great. Do you want me to pull over?" you asked quietly. "Did you over-exert yourself with all of your Jackaboy-ness?" You managed to get a little smile out of him.  
"'No, no, (Y/N), I'm okay. Just allergies, I think. This time of year is weird like that, you know?"  
He turned to give you a look of reassurance, but his eyes looked strange- almost black. You jumped a bit in your seat, and he looked confused. "What?" he asked, looking around as if something else had scared you. "Your eyes look kind of...watery." They had been watery, right? Surely that's what you had seen. "I think I have some allergy meds in the back seat."  
"Just keep driving, (Y/N). I'm fine, really. Go ahead and take the next right."  
Before long, you pulled into what seemed to be some sort of promenade. You looked around, noticing a few nice restaurants, but nothing that seemed to require neon attire. "Pull in here." Jack gestured to a parking lot, and you pulled in crookedly. You stared up at the building before you, feeling excitement build in your stomach. "Oh my God. Oh my God. I am going to kick your ass at this!"  
It was glow-in-the-dark laser tag.  
Jack laughed. "I figured you'd say something like that! Just wait until you see the inside."  
The laser tag had a theme of dinosaurs versus robots, which you thought was both creative and ironic.  
"I call dinosaurs," you said immediately. "Really?" Jack looked surprised. "With all the technology and high gear that robots have- and probably jet packs and fire powers- you pick dinosaurs? Why?"  
"None of that stuff matters! Haven't you seen Jurassic Park? I'm sticking with dinos! And you're going down!"  
"I'm the one who's a professional gamer here," Jack teased. "And if I beat you, I get to take over your channel and rename it (Y/N)septiceye. What do you say?"  
"Wait, wait, I didn't agree to that!" Jack shouted after you as you went to find your team.  
The dinosaur team was composed of a few teenage boys who clearly knew what they were doing. "Hey guys!" You hopped over to them. They looked like nice guys who would accept the fact that you were a girl gamer without question. "So my friend over there- you might know him, Jacksepticeye-"  
The guys started looking excitedly over at Jack, and then nudging one another. "Yea, I've been watching him for years!" one said.  
"Cool. Anyway, I **really** want to kick his butt. What do you say? Help me? Please?"  
Jack was peering around the members of his robot team to see where you were, and he squinted when he saw you talking to the group of boys. He was probably trying to figure out what you were planning, but a part of you secretly wished that he was jealous at seeing you with other guys. But that was ridiculous.  
"Hey, we didn't come here to lose," another one of the boys said. "I'm Nathan, and this is Cameron," he motioned to the first boy, "and Cody." The last boy, Cody, was already fiddling with his laser tag vest. It buzzed with bright red light when he put it on, and you could see that the vests of the robot team had blue lights. Each vest had a little gun attached that had a scoreboard for points along with a cool ID tag for each one. Apparently Nathan's ID was Batman, Cameron was something weird like Blue Fire, and Cody was named Green Slime. "Typical," he said with a sigh, moving on to check out the gun. The vest you picked up was named Black Widow, and you did a little fist pump of victory.  
You looked over at Jack back on the robot team. Unfortunately his team consisted mostly of a group of little girls who had come for a birthday party. "Hey, you're Jacksepticeye! You're really cool!" You heard one girl squeal excitedly.  
You walked over to Jack to help pry the excited kids away from him. "Hey, who are you?" you asked him. Jack raised an eyebrow at you. "Oh, I'm Jack, I guess we haven't met before." "No, your ID tag, you goof! I'm Black Widow. No one beats her!"  
"Oh." He checked his ID and turned back to you with a smirk. "Well. I'm Hawkeye. I guess we'll have to secretly team up on this mission." "You're going to betray your team, Hawkeye?" you said, feigning shock.  
"I could always be a double agent. You never know. Watch your back, Black Widow!" Jack said. The glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to his forehead lit up Jack's face, and his green floof of hair was glowing slightly as well. "You should see your hair," you said with a laugh. "You look like some kind of glowing green alien."  
Suddenly, a countdown timer began speaking in a monotone voice. "Please prepare for battle. 20... 19... 18..."  
You hurried back to the separate space reserved for your dinosaur team, and checked your little gun. It had been years since you'd used a laser tag gun, and you asked Cody to quickly run you through what to do. "You literally just press the red button. Don't hit anyone on your own team, and try not to get hit yourself. Unless you want to sacrifice yourself for the team. You know." You decided that you liked Cody.  
"3... 2... 1... GO!"  
The laser tag playground was quiet at first as everyone snuck about. It was decorated with pieces of multicolored wall and giant statues of robots and dinosaurs.  
You searched around for the green hair that would give Jack away like a beacon. You noticed a giant green wall- Jack would hide there, if anywhere, in an attempt to blend in. He saw you right away and motioned you over. Just as you reached him, chaos broke out.  
The little girls from the robot team were screaming excitedly, trying to hit Nathan, Cody, and Cameron, who were letting them get in a few shots. Cody suddenly turned and began shooting at you. "Hey!" you said. "I'm on your team!" "Actually, I'm a secret spy for the other team!" Cody shouted jokingly, turning and firing on Nathan and Cameron. "Oh no you don't! I'm a secret spy too!" Jack stood up and fired at Cody, hitting him spot-on with every shot. You moved instinctively, going back-to-back with Jack, shooting a few of the adult members of the robot team. You and Jack rotated firing off shots, defending the other one when one got hit, moving in and out and behind walls, quickly regrouping. "I guess Black Widow and Hawkeye make a pretty good team," you said during a moment of downtime, noticing that neither of you had taken many hits. "No, (Y/N) and Jack make a pretty good team," Jack corrected.  
You and Jack forgot about your deal and focused on protecting each other as if your lives really did depend on it. In the end, though, the boys on your team let the little girls get in a few too many easy shots. The robot team walked away victorious.  
"Yay!" the birthday girl shouted, fixing her small pink light-up crown. Most of the girls were just excited to get extra prizes. One intense-eyed little girl swung her gun over her shoulder video-game style and strutted away, looking like she wanted to claim the gun itself as her prize.  
You giggled, then reached over and held your hand up for a high-five from Jack. "High fives all around!" you said. He high-fived you, then entwined his fingers with yours. "So was it worth coming here today?" You smiled. "Definitely." Then you realized. "Damn it! You and your contagious smile again!" "This is one game that you'll never win, (Y/N)!"  
You weren't sure that you wanted to.


	3. Before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N): Really short chapter. Sorry! The next one will be longer.**

You and Jack played laser tag longer than you'd intended, and it was nearly dinner time by the time you got back to Jack's apartment. "You know what we need?" Jack insisted. "Pizza."  
He ordered a delivery over the phone while you put The Avengers on the TV in honor of your teamwork as Hawkeye and Black Widow.  
You curled up on the couch, cuddling with one of Jack's jumbo septiceye Sams. "Hey!" Jack said when he saw that jumbo Sam was hogging his place on the couch. You giggled. "Sam wants to watch too." "Well, tell Sam to move over!" Jack wedged himself in between you and the plush, pressing up against you. You turned to look at Jack, but he was already focused intensely on the movie. You settled for laying your head on his shoulder. With the combination of Jack's steady breathing and the exhaustion of the day, you felt your eyes begin to slip closed.

When you opened them next, it was dark outside. The movie had long since ended and the TV was black, a quiet hum of static fizzling out from the speakers for some reason. You flicked the TV off and stood up clumsily in the dark. Where was your pizza? You heard Jack make a small grunting noise and froze. You two had fallen asleep against each other. What time was it?  
You looked at the clock in panic. 11:55. He was so weird about being in his room by midnight, you should really wake him up and tell him the time. But first, pizza. A girl has to have her priorities.  
You got up and checked outside the door. Of course there was no pizza waiting for you- you hadn't paid the delivery man. He'd probably gotten fed up and left. With a resigned sigh, you returned to Jack. 11:56 now. Should you really bother him? He looked so peaceful, and it wasn't like anything was actually going to happen on the stroke of midnight.  
This was just Ireland, a place that sometimes reminded you of a fairytale but certainly wasn't one. You stood and thought about it until 11:57. At 11:58, you moved towards Jack, ready to put a hand on his shoulder and shake him awake. At 11:59 you had decided not to. Going to bed exactly at midnight was just silly, and you would tell him so in the morning. The digital clock near the TV switched to 12:00, and you froze. Jack's apartment was eerily silent. No game sounds coming from his room, no wind outside. It was just you, holding your breath, standing next to a man who was doing nothing but sleeping.   
You shook your head at yourself and went to find a blanket to lay over him.

Suddenly, Jack cried out. It was a pained cry, a yelp, like a dog that had had its tail stepped on.  
You whipped back to the green-haired YouTuber, but it seemed like he was just having a bad dream. He wasn't actually in pain.  
Now you should definitely wake him.  
"(Y/N)." There was a note of fear in his voice as he said your name. You approached him. "Jack? You're asleep. It's okay, it's not real."  
"No! Stay back." He held out his hand, and you stopped a few feet away from him. There was such a sense of urgency in his voice- he couldn't just be talking in his sleep. It was too dark for you to see much, and you moved to turn on a light. "Please don't move," Jack whispered. "Jack, you're scaring me," you said sternly. "Wake up now. It's fine. It's past midnight, and nothing weird happened. C'mon."  
His eyes were squeezed shut and he placed a hand to his head, like you'd seen him do earlier in the car.   
You couldn't keep lying to yourself. Whatever was happening, this was the strange thing that Jack had been hiding from you. "Is this all? You get migraines in the middle of the night?" you asked, trying to pretend like the issue was smaller than you knew it was. "Just open your eyes, Jack. It'll go away faster."  
Jack laughed. It was a tinny, false sound. "I wish that was true."  
"Jack. You have to tell me what's going on. I have a right to know, if you won't even let me come near you."  
"I can't explain it all now." Jack had started breathing heavily and rubbed at his eyes. "Promise me you won't trust him. Whatever he tells you- whatever he looks like- he's not me. Okay? And don't- oh God, don't touch anything there."  
"Jack, I think you're sick. You're not making any sense. That's it, I'm calling the emergency room."  
"NO!" he shouted, and you jumped in fear. He'd never sounded that upset with you before.  
"You can't," Jack continued, trying to soften his tone. "I'm going to fix this. I promise. But for now, there's nothing I can do."  
He removed his hands from his face and took a deep breath. "Jack...?"  
You instinctively moved towards the door, ready to run. He just didn't feel like Jack anymore. Everything about him seemed wrong.  
In a flash, Jack's eyes shot open, and the intense blue that you loved so much was replaced by a soulless black and septic green pupils. This man sitting before you, this man who was not Jack, smiled at you.  
He had fangs. You screamed, and there was a flash of white light, and then you couldn't see.


	4. Alter World

You gasped and sat up.   
How had you gotten on the floor?  
Your clothes and hair were covered in chalky gray dust because you were, in fact, sitting on a pile of rocks.  
No, not just that- it seemed the whole ground was made of jagged rock that turned into a fine gray powder as you dug your hands into it. You felt like quoting Dorothy. _Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!_ You allowed yourself a minute of nonsensical laughter at the inappropriate joke, and then finally gathered the nerve to raise your head and look around.   
The land around you sloped upward and downward into little hills, all made of the same chalky rock. There wasn't a blade of grass in sight; in fact, there wasn't much of anything in sight. Up ahead you could see a long gray pathway striped with faint yellow- perhaps the remnants of what was once a road, but it was now cracked and crumbling to pieces. Everything seemed to be painted in shades of black and gray- even the sky. Stormy black rain clouds loomed overhead, yet there was no sign of any lightning or thunder. Just a sense of dread.  
When you felt ready to stand, you rose shakily to your feet and did a full 360 circle around yourself. You noticed that there were a few buildings far off in the distance and behind you. The largest building was, astoundingly, another shade of gray. It was so big that it appeared to touch the sky. The pointed columns attached to the top of it reminded you of some kind of medieval castle.  
You circled back around to face the road. You'd surveyed your surroundings, and now you just had to take everything else one step at a time.  
You knew exactly what had just happened. Your mind hadn't been wiped, you were just trying to put it out of your head for the time being.  
You'd been with Jack, and on the stroke of midnight he'd turned into some kind of creature with demonic eyes and fangs. You shivered just thinking about it.   
Was this a dream? Perhaps in a few minutes you would wake up on the couch next to Jack, and he would tell you stories about how you'd been talking in your sleep.  
You lay back down and closed your eyes. If it was true, if Jack was really some kind of monster that belonged to this hellish world, then you didn't want any part of it.   
You moved your arms and legs up and down through the dirt, making an angel in the rocks, ignoring the pain of the sharp pieces digging into your skin. "Jack..." you whispered to yourself, your voice cracking. You pinched yourself on the arm, hard. It left a mark. "JACK!" you shouted.

"Jesus," a soft voice said from behind you, and you screamed again. You turned around, tears welling up in your eyes, and they began falling out of relief instead of fear when you saw that it was Jack. "You make quite a racket," he said.  
"Oh Jack, thank God!" You ran towards him, but he took a fast step backwards. "Uh- Are you (Y/N)? (Y/N). Stop," he said.  
You skidded to a halt, your arms lowering to your sides in defeat. "But I'm just so happy to see you. I thought I'd died and that this was hell. I was so scared. I'm glad you're with me though, because-"  
You stopped. "Wait. Did you just ask me what my name was?"  
He sighed. "Oh shit. You think I'm Jack. Well, you can go on believing that, if it makes it easier."  
"But you are Jack." You looked into his eyes. They were completely blue. "You're not that monster that I saw before." Something flickered behind Jack's eyes, something like shadows. "Now that's not very nice. A monster? What's the true definition of a monster? Some humans are monsters, you know. What a rude word." "S-sorry," you stammered out, frightened again.  
"Do you see these contacts?" Jack pointed to his eyes. "I had them custom-made. My real eyes, they freak people out sometimes. Not my friends, of course, but visitors like you. I hoped they'd impress you, but I'm not Jack. Sorry."  
"Um... do you have... multiple personality disorder?" you tried, still convinced that this was Jack. Who else could he be?  
He sighed. "No, I'm not Jack at all. Ever. Here- look."  
The man- not Jack- pressed a finger to his right eye and popped out the blue contact, revealing black where the white of his eye should be and a piercing green iris. "W-what are you?" you asked in a whisper, half in awe and half terrified.  
The man took out the other contact and smiled. His mouth was full of shark-like teeth.  
"Now. Don't waste your question."   
"What?" You'd begun shaking slightly, and it wasn't because you were cold. In fact, it was uncomfortably hot.  
"What if I only give you the answer to one question? I assume you want to know who I am, what I am, where you are, where Jack is. So which of those questions takes priority?"  
"Don't play games with me," you said in a mocking tone. The man looked at you in shock. Your eyes widened. You'd just spoken to him teasingly, the way you were used to speaking with Jack.  
"Please don't hurt me," you managed to squeak out as a terrified apology.  
"Hurt you?" The man grinned again. "I would never dream of it."

He began to walk towards the road a little ways away, and there was nothing you could do but follow. You would starve out in this apocalyptic wasteland by yourself.   
"I know your name, so it's only fair that I introduce myself. I'm Antisepticeye. Please call me Anti." "Hi, Anti," you mumbled.   
He turned to stare at you again.  
You glared back. "Would you stop that?" "Stop what?" he asked defensively. "Staring at me like I'm an alien. And using his face to do it!"  
"This face is mine. Jack has his. We're not the same person."  
Anti put his back to you, as Jack would sometimes do when he was irritated.  
"Okay, so you're Anti. Whatever. What are you? Where am I? What did you do to-"  
"Jack. I know. Trust me, I know your priorities. You can't blame me because I didn't touch him. He's back home, asleep, inactive while I'm awake."  
"Why did you bring me here?"  
Anti didn't answer. Suddenly he pivoted on his foot and turned so he was facing you, while continuing to walk backwards. His smile was like a splitting seam. You stopped, your feet dragging on the ground. You were startled again by those inhuman eyes. "Can't I tell you about myself first? Aren't you curious?" Anti asked. "No," you said stubbornly. "I don't care. You kidnapped me, and as soon as I can, I'm getting out of here." "Now, the thing is, I don't believe that for a second. You're too intelligent. You want to know what this place is. Secondly, I didn't kidnap you! But you'll never believe that."  
Anti turned away from you and kept walking forward. You tried to stay quiet, silently hating that he was right. You did want to know about him and why he looked like some kind of Halloween monster.  
"Fine. What are you?"  
Anti did a little fist pump in the air that reminded you too much of Jack. "Gotcha! I'm so glad you asked." He told you the story excitedly and all at once. "I'm called an Alter Ego. This is the Alter World, the place where all of the evil alter egos live. Every major celebrity, particularly YouTubers, has one. We are generated by the haters of the world. We encompass everything that the YouTubers are not, the opposite of their personalities. Or so I've heard. I've never met Jack myself."  
"I think you two are actually very similar," you commented.   
Anti whipped around, storming over to you. You flinched. "Take that back right now," he whispered cruelly, his teeth inches from your face. Anti never raised his voice, and that frightened you more than anything. His anger was quiet and deadly.  
"I can't take it back," you insisted, knowing that you were laying a death trap for yourself. "It's true. You look like him, you talk like him... I hate this place. Where's Jack?"  
Anger swirled behind Anti's eyes and he turned away with a grunt. "Back at home. Fine. I told you."  
Anti walked in silence for a few moments, and you took the opportunity to look him over. He wore black jeans, a leather jacket, and large black gauges in his ears.  
His hair was about two shades of green darker than Jack's. This definitely wasn't your Jackaboy.  
This man- this creature- had stolen the face of your best friend and the man who secretly held your heart. You hated it.  
The two of you approached the road, which seemed split in two as if by an earthquake. In fact, it seemed like every natural disaster known to mankind had struck this world. Fires, hurricanes, tornadoes- it was just all in ruins.  
Anti reached back towards you and offered you a hand. You looked at him in disgust. "What, does this bother you?" Anti asked, looking a bit disappointed.  
You looked down at Anti's extended hand. He didn't have fingers so much as long black claws. They moved like human fingers, but still looked sharp and frightening.  
"Oh," you said. "No. I'm disgusted by you in general. I didn't even realize you had... claws." Anti retracted his hand quickly on the word 'claws'. "I was just trying to help you across the street like a gentleman. If you trip and fall, I'm going to laugh at you."  
"I don't need help walking across the street. I am a woman, not a dog," you retorted, stepping carefully around what seemed to be computer debris lying on the side of the road.  
You paused to make sure your comment sunk in with Anti. Then you posed another question. "So when you say that you were generated to be the opposite of Jack... what does that mean? You hate video games? You hate people? I don't get it."  
"I've never played a video game. I suppose you could say I hate people, as in I have no qualms about murdering them." He turned and smiled broadly at you again. You couldn't take it anymore. You turned and ran.  
In an instant, Anti had appeared in front of you. "No, (Y/N). There's no time for that. We were getting along so nicely, too. Don't make me carry you like a sack of potatoes."  
"We're not getting along! I hate you!" you screamed, turning and running again. "You can go!" Anti called after you. "For your sake, I hope you don't run into any other Alter Egos out there! Not all of them are as nice and cuddly as me!"  
You stopped and circled back around to Anti. "Oh, you're back so soon," he said, acting pleasantly surprised.  
"I want you to take me back to Jack right now," you demanded.  
"He'll come for you," Anti said. "If there's one thing I know about him, it's that. He'll come for you, because we're opposites, and I wouldn't. I would've left you to rot and die." You felt bile rise in your throat.  
"But-" you quickly pointed out, "you did come back for me. As soon as I arrived here, you were there, and then you explained this whole world to me. That's exactly like something Jack would do."  
"Jack's not here," Anti gritted through his teeth.   
"But he will be," you said, reassuring yourself. Just picturing Jack's smiley face brought you a sense of security.   
His games and sense of humor had gotten you through a lot of shit before, and the two of you would figure out a way through this.  
You didn't notice the pained look on Anti's face as he continued down the road. "Come on," he muttered. "Keep up."


	5. River Septic

The towering building in the distance grew closer, and you could finally see that it actually was a castle. The castle towers were surrounded by clouds of opaque shadowy mists, and you noticed that small windows were spaced at random on each tower. Shafts of multicolored light filtered out from each window- one was green, one red, one purple, and probably other colors that you couldn't see from your view.  
You looked at Anti, who was walking ahead of you with his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans.  
You'd told yourself to hate him, to simply put up with him until Jack came to find you. But you couldn't tame your curiosity. There was so much you wanted to know about this Alter World. Why was it such a barren wasteland? Where had it come from? Who lived in the castle? Perhaps Anti was currently taking you to the supreme dark ruler of this land, and leading you to your death.  
You wanted to know about Anti too. Where did he live? What did he eat? You held your tongue partially because you were afraid of the answers. What if he said, "I live in your head," or "I eat brains"?  
You heard Anti softly chuckling to himself, and for a minute you were terrified that he could read minds, too.  
"Okay, (Y/N)," he said. "You're awfully quiet back there. Are you contemplating escape again? Or do you have questions for me?"  
You decided to ask about Alter World itself first. It was safer.  
"You told me that there are other people who live here. But we haven't seen anyone yet. Why not?"  
You glared at the back of Anti's head, daring him to snap at you or dismiss your question.  
Anti looked back over his shoulder at you, one of his black eyes glinting. "And what if I was lying? What if we're the only two souls in this world?" Your heart twisted in fear. Anti laughed. "Kidding. Of course there are other Alter Egos here- I wouldn't call them people. We're not people."  
"Then what are you?"  
"I don't know any more than you do. Not people, not demons. Maybe something in between. That's why we chose a name for ourselves."  
"So... where are the other, um, Alter Egos?" you pressed.  
"They stay in the city. They see no reason to leave. When a new Alter Ego moves here, we accept them with open arms. After all, we're all in the same boat here. You make friends quickly, and the city becomes like home. Besides, there's nothing out here except rocks and forgotten memories."  
"But you come out here," you pointed out. Anti sighed. "I'm different."  
"Don't you have a friend group inside the city?" You hopscotched around a pile of rocks. Anti looked over at you in amusement.  
"Sure. My best friend is, of course, the Alter Ego of Jack's best friend. Darkiplier." You stumbled when he said this, barely catching yourself with one hand braced against the ground.  
Anti looked back at you without much concern. "Hey, stay alive back there, will ya?"  
"Mark has an Alter Ego?" you squeaked out.  
"Of course, weren't you listening? We all do. Dark and I have been friends for a while now. I think he'll like you."  
For some reason, the way Anti said that sent shivers down your spine.  
Since you were Jack's best friend, you knew Mark by association.  
He was one of the sweetest gamers that you'd ever met, and you couldn't imagine him having a dark side. Yet you couldn't imagine a dark side for Jack either, and here you were with Anti.  
You quickened your pace a bit so that you were walking next to Anti. He stiffened and glanced at you, but continued.  
"So... you said you were different. How? Do you live out here?" you asked.  
You knew you might be pushing Anti's buttons, but you had to know. And if you got him to talk, maybe it would help you figure out how to get back to Jack.  
"Why do you care?" he snapped. "Look, if you insist on dragging me all over this world and keeping me away from Jack, then you could at least talk to me."  
Anti rolled his eyes. "I'm not that different from the rest of them. I'm still an Alter Ego. I just like walking out here because it's quieter. I live in an apartment in the city, but I don't spend much time there."  
You nodded to him, letting the conversation drop.  
"So how long is it going to take us to get to the city? Why aren't there any cars here? Do you guys just fly from place to place, or-"  
"God, you just never stop talking, do you?!" Anti exclaimed.  
You shrugged. "I guess it comes from spending so much time around Jack. He's loud and not afraid to say what he thinks, and that's what makes him lovable."  
Anti turned to you. "We teleport from place to place, like you saw me do earlier." You blinked. "So why are we still walking?"  
He grinned. "I said **we** teleport. Who knows what it would do to your human body? At the very least, it would make you sick. And I want to get you into the city in one piece." "Why do you care at all? Why do I matter? Just let me go home!" "You want to know why?" Anti hissed. "You've been spending too much time with Jack. You have an effect on him, and I don't like it." "Well, that's not really your business," you muttered under your breath. But you found yourself blushing as you realized the full meaning of Anti's words. You had an effect on Jack? You and Anti passed by a pile of rubble, mostly bricks and some large chunks of metal. It was clearly the demolished structure of a small building. You were shocked to see that the shop next to it was still standing. In fact, it wasn't just standing; it looked new. You glanced at Anti, who had also noticed the shop. "(Y/N), stay close to me," he said, a note of warning in his voice. Your first instinct was to disobey him. You turned quickly on your heel and started sprinting towards the shop. "Ugh," Anti sighed, and teleported so that he was next to you. "If you're going to explore dangerous places, at least let me come with you." He pressed closer to you, and for some reason you didn't feel the need to move away. It really did seem like he wanted to protect you. "Why would this cute little shop be dangerous?" "Because I've walked out here a million times and this is the first time I've seen it," Anti said, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. You approached the shop window, which was lined with elaborate wooden trim. It seemed to be some sort of jewelry shop. The window held black velvet necklace displays showing off necklaces studded with multicolored stones. You frowned as you peered closer. The first necklace was a mustache made of pink sapphires- Markiplier's logo. The second was Jack's septiceye Sam, made out of emeralds and blue sapphires. The next one you laid eyes on was Pewdiepie's brofist, made out of aquamarine stones. It seemed like there was a necklace for every YouTuber you could name. Clearly no one was buying them. Why were they here? You pressed your face to the window and peered into the darkened shop. You could just make out an elderly woman arranging more necklaces inside. She turned to the window and waved when she saw you. You moved in a trance-like state towards the door. Anti reached out and snatched your arm, one of his claws scratching you. "What the hell are you doing, (Y/N)? That woman is a witch!" "What?" You shook yourself out of your hypnotized state. "But- look, Anti, all of these necklaces are YouTuber logos! What are they for? Plus she looks so nice- I really think she's just a shopkeeper..." You turned back to the window and trailed off as you caught sight of the woman again. Her face was now pressed up against the glass. Her gray hair seemed rotten, falling around her face in wisps, and her eyes were a blood-red. She reached one bony hand out to you. "One of these necklaces is yours, child," she snarled. "And you will come back for it." She tapped one finger gently against the glass, and it began to crack. "Anti," you whispered in fear. He was the lesser of two evils right now. "(Y/N), it's okay. Just walk back to me. Slowly." You took one step back. The woman started tapping faster, her mouth spreading in a toothless grin, ripping open until it became a gaping hole. You shrieked instinctively and Anti yanked you back towards him, forgetting his comment about moving slowly. One more tap against the glass and it would shatter. "On my count, we run," he said. "Can't you just fight her off?" you screeched. "Are you kidding me? If she curses both of us, what good will that do?" he snapped. "Like I said, on my count. Three...two..." The glass smashed and fell backwards into the shop. "Run!" Anti tightened his grip on your arm and pulled you along behind him, barely giving your feet time to start moving. You'd only run about the equivalent of a block when you turned to look back. There was no sign of the witch. In fact, the building had completely disappeared. "Jack. Jack," you said. Anti looked back at you in annoyance. "I am Anti. Not Jack. This must be what twins feel like." "Sorry," you said truthfully. "But the shop is gone. Look." Anti slowed his pace and paused to glance back. "You're right. We got off easy." "I want to go back and double-check," you said, twisting your arm from Anti's grip. "What? No! Why would we go back? The city is this way!" Anti pointed towards the castle. "Wow, you really are nothing like Jack," you commented. "He always goes back to explore things. You're boring, Anti." But you didn't argue with him further. You didn't particularly fancy seeing that witch's haunting face again. Anti sighed. "We're almost at the bridge that crosses the river. We'll stop there for a while, and then it's only a few more hours into the city." In a few more blocks, Anti had led you to a very familiar bridge spotted with broken, eerily flickering street lights. "Wait a minute..." A cold feeling seized your heart. "This is... this is the River Shannon. Oh my God. This is Ireland." Anti shook his head. "This is the Alter World. But, yes, this particular part of Alter World is modeled after Athlone. Maybe that's why I like spending time here. And that's not the River Shannon. I've named it the River Septic. It's kind of like... my river." "But this is Ireland. And it's destroyed." You felt tears welling up in your eyes and quickly wiped them away before Anti could see. "(Y/N), can we... can we go down by the river for a little while?" he asked. You turned to him in surprise. It was the first time he'd asked your permission instead of demanding you do something. "I guess. Why? I thought you wanted to go straight to the city." "I do. But-" You followed Anti's hand with your eyes as he reached out to you, and your heart did a strange flutter. You had to remind yourself that he wasn't Jack. "I... I hurt you." Anti's voice sounded broken, and you looked down at the small cut on your arm. "Oh. This? Whatever. You also saved my life back there, so I should be thanking you." You paused. "Thanks." "No. Let's just go down to the river and wash your arm off." He nodded determinedly to himself and began walking down the hill that sloped to the riverbank. Feeling lost, you slowly followed him. When the two of you reached the edge of the river, Anti pointed to the water. "Go. Wash it off." You stooped down and smiled up at him. "It's not really septic, is it?" Anti didn't even seem to hear you. "I don't really know how humans work. Will it... will the cut be permanent?" "Anti. Don't worry. It was an accident. Why do you care so much anyway? I thought you hated me. If you're the opposite of Jack, then that makes you-" "Some kind of monster?" Anti said, grinning. "And I am. I know I am. But I didn't want to hurt you. And the fact that I hurt you without meaning to... well. I don't know. This is a new feeling to me. Just wash it off! This doesn't have to be a huge moral discussion." You splashed some water on the cut, and smiled at Anti when he turned to watch you. "You know, I can't quite figure you out, but you're not half bad," you said. Anti laughed and motioned for you to stand up. He wasn't offering you his hand anymore. "Thanks, but my goal is to be completely bad. They give awards for that kind of thing, you know." You began heading back up to the bridge. Anti screamed. It was mostly a scream of pain, but mixed with some rage. You whipped around, terrified of what river creature might have gotten ahold of him. Instead, he had his hands pressed against his forehead. His knees buckled and he sank into the soft muck of the riverbed. You didn't dare to move. "Anti?" you said softly. If he was having some kind of heart attack, then this was your chance to abandon him and go home. But could you just walk away after he'd saved your life? "(Y/N)!" Anti cried out desperately, but his voice sounded different. He looked up at you pleadingly, but his eyes were bright blue. You recognized him right away. "Jack! I thought I'd never see you again!" "Come here, quick. I'm taking you home with me and we're going to fix this. I'm so, so sorry!" "It's okay!" You rushed over to your gamer and knelt next to him, pressing your forehead to his. "I missed you. This place is like hell." "I know. I know. What did Anti do to you? Did he hurt you? I'll kill him!" "I'm alive, that's what matters, and so are you. I just want to go home. Seeing the world destroyed like this is breaking my heart." "We're going home right now, and I won't let him touch you again." You closed your eyes in relief, and Alter World began to shake and blur together. You gripped onto Jack like a lifeline as the ground crumpled beneath you.


	6. Don't Be Afraid

When you came to, you were laying on the small couch in Jack's apartment. He was pacing in front of you muttering to himself, the way he sometimes did if he was expecting someone at the door.  
"Hey," you said, your voice cracking. Jack halted and his worry-filled eyes flickered over to you. For the first time, you noticed the dark circles underneath his eyes. He hadn't been getting much sleep, and for all this time, you'd had no idea why.  
"(Y/N)! You're okay!" Jack rushed over to you and took your face in his hands. He let out a breath of air that tickled your face. "I was scared you weren't coming back to me. It's easy to get stuck in Alter World, especially if an ego is holding you there. I've even done it myself a few times, so-"  
"Jack!" You cut him off, trying to keep the irritation from your voice. "I think you owe me an explanation."  
"You're right." He moved to sit on the couch next to you, then looked at you as if checking to see if you would mind. You instantly lifted your legs from the couch and moved over. He was so close to you. You moved an inch closer, hoping he wouldn't notice.  
"First I want to know if you're okay," you demanded. "All of this is confusing, but the most important thing is you. You almost look sick."  
"Me?!" Jack shouted, and you felt a strange sort of relief. After hearing Anti's quietly menacing voice for so long, Jack's shouting was music to your ears.  
"What about you?! Are you okay?! Let me see that." He took your arm gently and looked at the scratch Anti had left. "Wait here." He sprang up and ran to the bathroom. Before you could blink, he was back with bandages and antibiotic ointment.  
He began smoothing the treatment onto your arm, and you relaxed into his touch.  
"I'm so sorry," Jack began. "I never meant to drag you into all of this."  
"I was gonna get involved at some point," you said dismissively. "Just start from the beginning."  
"Anti wasn't always this strong. He showed up a few years ago when I was having a rough day. I was sitting in my room trying to record videos when I just went out cold. When I woke up, a whole day had gone by and I was left with strange memories of another world."  
"So you have memories of what Anti does?" you asked. "Yes, bits and pieces. He sees what I do too. But everything looks fuzzy and unreal, almost as if he's picking and choosing what he wants me to see.  
The other YouTubers- I didn't know about their Alter Egos. It's not something you just talk about, y'know? It's why I didn't tell you. I trust you more than you can know, (Y/N)..."  
You felt your face heat up at this.  
"But I didn't want to seem crazy. Anyway, when fanart and fanfictions about characters like Anti and Dark spread online, it became too real.  
Anti has taken over my life. He already takes over at midnight every night, but soon he might decide to take over forever. It scares me."  
Jack finished wrapping a white bandage around your arm, his fingers lingering on your skin. You looked up at him, but he wouldn't meet your eyes.  
"I didn't think you were scared of anything," you whispered. "I mean, heights and some horror games, I guess. But nothing this serious."  
"Everyone has that one fear that sits in the back of their mind. The one they're too afraid to speak of, to even think. The thing that makes you scream in your sleep. And mine is him."  
Jack finally met your eyes, and for a moment you swore you saw them flicker to black and green.  
You gasped and scooted back, taking your arm from Jack's grasp.   
A new fear alighted in Jack's eyes as he watched you do this. "What are you doing?" he asked nervously. "I just- I'm sorry. I thought I saw- Anti..."  
"I'm not Anti. He can't come here, not at this time of day. Please. I can't bear for you to look at me like that." Your heart broke at the look on his face. "I know. You're my Jack." Jack smiled and held his arms open for you.   
You knew he didn't have any romantic feelings for you. He was your friend, and right now he needed you as a friend, so you were going to be there. "Do you trust me?" Jack whispered. "Always," you replied. "I don't think you know how much I trust you, Sean." You used his real name in light of the seriousness of the situation. "I trust my smile to you." You wanted to add, 'And my heart,' but you didn't want to freak him out. "You're the only person who can make me smile, actually. I'll do anything to help you get rid of Anti."  
Jack stared at you. "How are we supposed to do that? I've been trying for months."  
"I don't know, but we'll find a way. I think we should start by trying to get your mind off of it."  
"How will that help?"  
"Well... Anti is the opposite of you. You're always optimistic and energetic, and you can't let him take that from you. We should have fun. He hates fun. He's like the Grinch." Jack's mouth twitched in what was almost a smile. "The Grinch? Was that because of my green hair?" You cuddled into him. "Maaaaybe."  
"(Y/N), you know I like to tackle problems head-on. We shouldn't procrastinate."  
You sighed dramatically. "Oh no, you're becoming the Grinch too. Now I have to be Cindy Lou-Who and put my hair up in that crazy twisty ponytail."  
Jack rolled his eyes. "Ugh, shut up! Okay, fine. But only because I want to keep an eye on you. I don't want to lose you to Anti."  
"I'm not going anywhere. So let's go play video games, okay?"

You sat down in Jack's swivel chair to play Resident Evil 7. You'd watched him and a million other YouTubers play the game already, and you knew the story like the back of your hand, but you'd never played yourself. Jack watched intently as you began, stroking his fingers through your hair and commenting every once in a while. Each time his fingers touched your scalp, your heart skipped a beat. But he was just doing this as a friend, right? It didn't mean anything. You had to catch yourself before you made a purring noise.  
"Agghhh, right THERE!" Jack quickly slammed your hand down on the keyboard as about three Molded came up from behind Ethan. "Hey, I've got it!" you said, nudging Jack out of the way. Apparently you didn't have it. You groaned in frustration as you died. Jack smirked at you. "You got it, huh? If you're going to make video games for a living, you should get better at playing them first!" "Whatever! It's only because you've played this before. I can still kick your ass at Mario Kart and you know it! Besides, who says I'm going to make video games for a living?"  
"I know you think video game design is cool, and you're so good at coming up with storylines. So you better let me be the first to play your games on my channel!"   
You smiled. "Depends how nice you are to me."   
You went to get up to find Mario Kart and the XBox controllers.  
"(Y/N)," Jack said, his voice dropping low. You froze, anticipating what was coming next. "I love your attempts to take my mind off things, I really do. You already make me so happy. But having fun isn't always a good way to fix problems. And Anti is a problem."   
You turned back to Jack. "Um... how is Anti? Can he hear what we're saying right now?"   
Jack averted his eyes shamefully. "Yea. He's upset. He wishes he was here. He wishes he was here... with you."  
That was the last thing you expected. Fiery vengeance and a death wish on your head, maybe. But not this. Your heart twisted. "Oh."  
"He's also wishing I was dead," Jack added.   
Now something in your mind twisted. No. Not your Jack. You clutched Jack tightly. "He's not going to hurt you. We're going to take him out first."  
"But you don't hate him," Jack replied. Your eyes widened. "What? Of course I do!"  
"No. I don't know what he told you, but it seems like you feel sorry for him. You might even like him, and that scares me more than anything he might do to me. Because he's going to break you."  
You took a deep breath. "It's just confusing. He looks like you and talks like you, and I just don't know. But if he's threatening you and hurting you, then I know he's not you. And I want him gone."  
Jack took a deep breath. "I know. Thank you. There's a portal down by the River Shannon that will let us get into Alter World without any of that trippy earthquake stuff. Once we're there together, we can figure out how to deal with him."  
"I really wish you'd told me about all of this before," you sighed.   
"I'm sorry (Y/N), I wanted to, I just-"  
"It's okay. I understand the 'deepest fear' thing, Jack, trust me. But what are we going to do for tonight? Won't he come back?"  
"I know it's too much of me to ask for you to stay away from him. So just... don't trust him, okay? For me."  
You pressed your head into Jack's chest. You didn't need to say anything. He already knew what you'd do for him.  
"(Y/N), I'm sorry that I can't be your happy Jack all the time. I want to be."  
"Don't be silly. Not everyone can be happy all the time. I just want to help you get rid of the negativity so you can get back to doing what you love."  
"And what about you? When will you focus on what you love?"  
Your heart beat faster. You had to tell him sometime, and he so desperately needed to know that you trusted him right now. It was as good a time as any.   
"Jack," you said, barely loud enough for him to hear you. "You are what I love."

There was a beat of silence.

Jack pulled you into him and took in a shuddering breath. "How am I supposed to let you go back to him now? I love you. (Y/N). I love you too. Please come back to me. Stay safe."


	7. Darker Still

You felt a sharp stinging sensation against your face, and it took a moment for it to register. You blinked and Anti was standing in front of you. For a minute you thought he'd slapped you and you were about to go ten kinds of feminist crazy on him.  
You realized he'd simply moved so inhumanly fast that he'd stirred up dust and gravel, which was now in your eyes.  
You coughed and took a step back. "Wow, you got here fast. I thought for sure you'd be mad at me."  
"Mad?!" Anti hissed lowly. "Try betrayed. Sickened. Furious."  
You flinched away on every one of his words. "Why? Because I was spending time with Jack? You don't understand! I-"  
"You love him. I know. I heard. And I don't care. I shouldn't have expected anything more from a fucking human. But 'taking me out'? Oh, no. I don't think so."  
Anti gave a little laugh like that of a serial killer. "I won't let you get away with that. Alter World is my home. My friends and I have earned our place here. And since you're back, you can help us **keep** our place here. And maybe even move on to Jack's world as well! Wouldn't that be cool?" He grinned, displaying his shark teeth. A drop of thick blood fell from the corner of his mouth.  
You screamed. "Jack was right! You're evil! You hurt people, you kill people, and you probably eat them too! Why did I ever trust you?"  
Anti snarled at you. "There you go. Just make assumptions about people you barely even know. That'll get you far in life."  
He reached out and grabbed your arm, practically dragging you back towards the road. The two of you had ended up past the river, closer to the city and the castle than you had been before, but still a few miles away.  
"Let me go!" You twisted and began walking in the opposite direction, but Anti's claws dug into your skin. He didn't seem to have any qualms about it now.  
"I thought you didn't want to hurt me!"  
"That was before, when I thought you were different. But I'm on their side now. I'm handing you straight over, and I won't feel an ounce of regret."  
You winced. "Who? Please! What do they- what do you- want from me?"  
"Me? I've never wanted anything! You know that! They, on the other hand, want more than what Alter World has to offer. They want to expand. The other Egos want to get out into the real world, taste it for themselves. Alter Egos feed on fear, (Y/N). They say that the worst fear is out in your world."  
"I don't know. This world is scary enough as it is." You thought back to the witch woman in the shop window. You couldn't get her face out of your head. Anti smirked.  
"This world is just an imitation of true fear. The terror here is irrational. But in your world... the loss, the death, the devastation... that's real. And they want it."  
"You're horrible. Evil. All of you."  
Anti's grip on your arm loosened, and he turned to you. "Can I just ask why you hate me?"  
There was a desperate plea in Anti's eyes, and for a moment it reminded you of Jack. Jack would sometimes look at you like that when he wanted an extra cookie. Your face twitched up in a smile before you could stop it. "I don't hate you," you said without thinking.   
"That's what I was hoping. But then why do you look at me like you hate me?"  
"Because I'm supposed to hate you. You're evil. There's blood dripping from your mouth." You motioned to your own mouth. Anti wiped at his mouth, looking embarrassed, as if you'd caught him with spinach in his teeth. "Oh. Is that... that's all? That's the reason?"  
You shrugged. "One of many. You're kind of an ass in general, too."  
Anti rolled his eyes. "Thanks."  
He had completely let go of your hand and kept moving forward, trusting you to follow him. Curiosity got the better of you and you did.  
"This..." Anti said, licking his lips to remove the blood, "just kind of happens. It's my own blood. I didn't kill anything. It just... does this." You tilted your head. "Do you have... um... a bleeding disorder?"  
Now it was Anti's turn to shrug. "Could be. Who knows."  
"Well, I'm... sorry. You're right. I shouldn't assume."  
The two of you pressed forward until you reached the outskirts of the city.   
The sparseness of the land cut off so abruptly that it was like reaching the end of a video game map. Would you be able to enter into the city beyond? It seemed like an area forbidden to you, enclosed by its own bubble, saved for when you reached a higher level.  
Anti stopped suddenly, causing you to bump into him. "Oomph. Hey, careful, you dumb!"  
Anti quirked an eyebrow at you and grabbed your hands gently, pulling you into himself. Your face flushed. "W-what are you doing?"  
"Want to teleport?"  
"I thought you said it wasn't safe."  
"You're with me. We'll be okay. But if you're too scared..."  
Anti started to flicker, as if threatening to teleport off and leave you stranded. "Hey! No!" You clung onto him, and gasped as you appeared abruptly in the middle of a busy sidewalk.  
One minute you were standing on the outskirts of the city, and the next, the buildings were towering over you.  
Back at home, Athlone was never this busy. People walked around, sure, but not like this. You were being tossed around by inhuman strangers like the ball in a pinball machine. You assumed they were Alter Egos, and you were horrified that you'd see someone you recognized. You bumped into a woman whose eyes and hair changed color. Everywhere she walked, colored swatches of paint appeared on the ground.   
She stopped and stared at you, her face breaking into a smile contradictory to her next words. "Move. Bitch," she said through clenched teeth.  
You squeaked and retreated to the side of a building, looking around desperately for Anti. "Anti!" you whisper-yelled, but got no response. Had he abandoned you after all?  
You noticed your reflection in the side of the building. You were covered in that strange ashy dust, even on your face, and you looked like a walking corpse. But you felt alert and alive. You felt like you wanted to get rid of these Alter Egos and get back to Jack. You wanted to hold him. You wanted him to kiss your forehead. And your lips. But that could never happen if you didn't free him from this world first.  
Except Anti. Maybe you could spare Anti's life. He didn't hate you, after all, and he'd grown on you too.  
Your survival senses kicked back in and you glanced into the alleyway behind you, cautious of any approaching figures.  
When you turned back around, a man was standing in front of you and was blocking your path out of the alley.  
You moved to step back and position yourself in a fighting stance, but you lost interest as you began to take in the man's appearance. He was interesting more than scary.   
You'd seen enough weird shit in this Alter World, and not much truly scared you any more. Besides, Anti was right- the real terror was back out in your world.  
The man standing before you- if you could call him a man- looked at you like something gross but fascinating that he'd found on the bottom of his shoe. You didn't like the look in his eyes, although the eyes themselves were almost hypnotizing. They were a blood red- not a bright stop sign red, but true red, deep and dark and dripping. His facial features were sharp and defined, and there were dark circles under his eyes from clear lack of sleep. He wore a dark suit, which he filled out as if he'd been born to wear it.  
There was a strange shimmery aura surrounding him, as if he wasn't actually standing still, and it made you dizzy to look at for too long.  
"Huh. You new here?" He finally spoke, his voice rough. "I didn't think this place was an option for humans as an afterlife, but maybe they're turning it into a new kind of hell. We could do with some renovations."   
"I-I'm not human," you stuttered. Something told you to keep your true identity hidden.  
"I'm an Alter Ego," you lied. "For a new YouTuber."  
He laughed and an unwelcome set of shivers went down your spine. "You're a poor liar. You won't survive a day out here throwing around crap like that. It's lucky that you ran into me and not someone worse. You wouldn't happen to be one of Anti's newest pets, would you?"   
Recognition clicked in your mind. "You're Darkiplier!" you exclaimed. "I've heard a lot about you." Darkiplier looked at you and raised his eyebrows. "You're a strange one. You don't seem scared at all. Well, in that case... Call me Dark." He stepped forward and took your hand in his, raising it to his lips and kissing it in the old-fashioned way. You blushed and squirmed a bit until he released you.  
He stepped back. "I'm in charge of these parts. Stick by me. I'll keep you on a leash until Anti gets back, pet." "I have a name, and it's (Y/N)," you snapped. "I'm nobody's pet!" So much for keeping your identity hidden, but you couldn't bear for him to call you a stupid name like that.  
"That's right, Dark," Anti's voice sounded from right behind your shoulder, and you startled. Where had he come from?  
Anti's eyes moved to you for a heartbeat before focusing back on Darkiplier. "She's nobody's pet, least of all yours." Anti moved to stand in front of you, his arm brushing against yours. Dark met him head on. "Ha, that's what I thought! You can't handle her." He turned and strode away. There was an inhuman growling noise coming from Anti's throat, and you looked at him in confusion. What was he doing? The last thing the two of you needed was enemies. "Anti?" you tried softly.  
He stopped as if on command and turned back to you. "Ignore that bastard. Let's keep moving towards the castle. Dark sees humans as something less than bacteria. I'd stay away from him, if I were you."  
You remembered Jack warning you similarly about Anti. You couldn't get too attached to this broken creature, this spitting image of your Jack. For he was just that, a broken creature. And there was a real man back in your world who loved you and was waiting for your return.


	8. Alter World's Cheat Codes

The closer the two of you got to the looming castle, the less dense the crowds became.  
You were shocked by the behaviors of these Alter Egos. Besides a few extra curse words here and there, and continuous insults, they spoke to each other like people in any other city. They weren't brutally murdering each other in the streets. In fact, they seemed rather happy in this desolate world.  
You overheard a few snippets of conversation.   
"Yea, that assignment from Ms. Cooper sucks. I'm failing her class anyway..."  
This comment came from a girl who appeared to be around high school age. She had two black appendages protruding from her back. They looked like wings, but they were covered in thorns that would shoot out and plunge into her back every few seconds. She didn't even flinch and continued talking to her friend, a boy with metallic bandages encasing his face.  
If these were high schoolers, then there must be a school here. How could that be?   
These creatures were honestly trying to make their strange lives into something normal.

Anti stopped abruptly and you ran into him. He turned to stare at you and rolled his eyes. "God, (Y/N). You're always in your own little world, aren't you?"  
"No, I'm in your world," you pointed out, but the words came out a bit more flirtatiously than you'd meant. Anti grinned and took a few steps towards you, putting his face close to yours. "I know," he whispered.  
"Ugh!" you pushed him away, feigning disgust. What you really wanted to do was pull him closer. "Your mind is so dirty!" you exclaimed.  
Anti brushed a strand of hair out of your face before moving away. "Wait right here," he instructed. "And stay away from the other Egos, got it? I have to try to negotiate my way into the castle."  
You peered around Anti. A bulky man smoking a cigar stood in front of the castle door with his arms crossed. At first glance you couldn't see anything special or powerful about him. But if he was the only one left in charge of guarding a huge castle, you weren't sure you wanted to find out.  
You crossed your arms, mimicking the guard. "Ha. You think I'm just going to let you walk me in there and hand me over to my death? You negotiate all you want. I'll stay right here, thanks. And if you start trying to drag me in, I'll scream my lungs out. For some reason, I have a feeling you want to keep this transaction quiet."  
"Listen, you idiot!" Anti hissed, bending down close to you. "I have to negotiate so that I can get myself in there. The second that guard realizes who you are, he'll drag you in by the hair. If I defend you, we'll have a better shot at getting you out of there alive. They would have found you sooner or later, so it's better that I'm with you."  
Your eyes flitted from Anti to the guard and back again. "I'm just gonna stand here?" you whisper-shouted back. "What about Darkiplier? What about the other creeps?"  
"If he touches you," Anti growled, "I'll break his arms." His eyes flashed blue for a heartbeat, and you startled. He turned to go.  
"Wait! Jack!" you said frantically. Those baby blue eyes were unmistakably Jack's.  
Anti sighed and turned back around exasperatedly. He pointed to himself. "Anti. Not Jack. Anti. What if I start calling you by your sister's name?"  
"I don't have a sister."  
"Ah, screw it. I'm done with you. Good-bye." He stomped off dramatically towards the intimidating steps of the castle.  
You were left standing in the middle of the cobblestone, and the other Alter Egos began surrounding you almost immediately. "Hey!" one called out, trying to approach you. This seemed like a very friendly community, but it was too friendly for your taste.  
You dodged the Ego, who looked frustrated, but quickly moved on. You found yourself standing on the left side of the street near some vendors selling tchotchke items.

Looking around for something to occupy your time with, you approached a small booth run by a group of middle school-age Egos wearing Halloween witch costumes. "Hi," you said, hoping they didn't realize you were human. You felt like you were at an extracurricular showcase like the ones they had back in high school.  
The kids stared at you.  
"So... um... tell me about your... thing?" You motioned to their booth. What was their "thing"? Witchcraft?  
"Wow! You mean you're actually interested?" One of the little girls squealed. You shrugged and nodded. "Seems like you put a lot of work into making all of this. So what's it about?" The girl took a deep breath. She'd clearly prepared a promotional spiel.   
"Have you ever wondered if there's more to this world than meets the eye? Have you ever seen strange apparitions or colors? You're not alone! We consider ourselves to be spiritual travelers between this world and the normal world. We only travel in spirit, of course, and there are plenty of skeptics. But we have proof."  
You'd been listening with mild interest but now tuned in fully, placing both of your hands flat against their table. "Travelers? Between the normal world and Alter World?"  
The girl nodded. "That's what I said, yea. The officials of the castle are so busy trying to take the normal world by force that they don't see the peaceful possibilities. For example, when you were very little, did you ever see colored dots?"  
You tilted your head at the young girl. What kind of drugs was she on?  
"Colored dots? Honey, what do you mean?"  
She nodded. "People have a hard time remembering sometimes. When you were little, you may have seen strange colored dots at night. I don't  
mean the floaters that everyone gets in the corners of their eyes. These dots look like sprinkles, and they usually come in primary colors- red, yellow, blue, and sometimes green. The dots never harm you, but they come intimidatingly close and sometimes form distinguishable shapes. Ring any bells?"  
There was a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach. For some reason, you did remember something like this. You'd always dismissed it as childhood imagination. "Yea. Maybe. And?"  
The little girl reached into her witch's cloak and pulled out a small jar full of the colored dots. You gasped, stepping back in surprise. "What- how did you-"  
"Only children can see them, and since we found out what they are, we've been trying to catch them. Once you catch them, they manifest themselves in a form that everyone can see. We only have a couple, but they're real. And they're spiritual orbs connecting us to the normal world. They can get us back there. I'm sure of it!"  
You stumbled back. If what the kids said was true, this could be just what you needed to get out of Alter World when you were transported there.  
"I need one," you said frantically, looking at the kids. The girl pulled the jar back towards her. "No way!"  
You threw your hands in the air, flustered, barely stopping yourself from making an obscene gesture at the girl. You were not taking any middle-schooler shit today.  
You moved away from the booth to give yourself space to think, pacing back and forth. "Hey! How about a donation to support us?" The girl looked at you expectantly.  
Seriously? This girl expected money from you now?  
You had to calm down and think. What would Jack do?  
 _"Yea, what would Jack do."_  
You looked around nervously, wondering if someone had actually said that or if it was in your head.  
You looked back at the booth. The girls were gossiping about you now, you were sure of it, but they were too far away for you to hear them clearly.  
"Um... hello...?" you said aloud. You got a few strange looks from passerby, but no audible response.  
Then the voice came again.  
 _"Okay. (Y/N). Don't freak out, but I'm awake. And... I think I'm talking inside your head."_  
You weren't just crazy. That was Jack! You'd know his voice anywhere, even in your head. "Ah! Jack! Get out of my head!" you screeched.  
 _"I'm sorry! There's nothing I can do. It's the only way I can talk to you. Are you... okay?"_  
The concern in Jack's voice calmed your palpitating heart.   
"Yea, I'm okay for right now."  
"Who are you talking to, dumbass?" someone on the street shouted to you.  
"What am I going to do?" You dropped your voice to a whisper. "They think I'm crazy. And here, in freaking Alter World, they kill you if you're crazy!"  
 _"Don't talk out loud. Just try talking to me in your head."_  
 _"No! I don't want you reading my mind!"_  
 _"There you go! You did it!"_ Jack said. _"And I didn't have to read your mind at all."_  
 _"I don't understand,"_ you thought at Jack. _"How are you awake?"_  
 _"Well, I think I'm awake."_  
 _"... What do you mean, you think? You either are or you aren't."_  
 _"Well, I think I'm sleep-walking. I'm down at the portal by the River Shannon, but everything looks kind of weird and fuzzy. What's Anti doing? Is he still awake?"_  
You looked over at Anti. Apparently your sudden outburst of shouting had drawn his attention, too. He was looking over at you with one eyebrow quirked in an unspoken question. Fear seized your heart. If he came over here now, it would all be over.  
"He's looking at me," you mumbled aloud. _"He's going to figure out that you're communicating with me!"_  
 _"Well, don't tell him then!"_ Jack replied. _"God. I'm going to kill that sonofabitch as soon as I get the chance."_  
You winced at the harshness of Jack's words.   
_"He's really not so bad. He hasn't done anything to hurt me, I mean."_  
 _"Just because someone hasn't hurt you specifically doesn't make them a good person, (Y/N). It doesn't excuse them."_  
 _"I know that! It's just... I mean... he's so..."_ What words could you use to describe Anti?  
 _"I think a part of you belongs to him now. Part of your heart, I mean,"_ Jack said. _"I'm not sure why. I just can't understand. When I see you with him, when he makes you happy, I hate it. I just want him gone."_  
 _"He will be gone,"_ you promised. _"But like you said, we've gotta figure out a way to defeat him. It'll be like a video game. We'll make it fun! But don't go through the portal. It's a one-way trip only. The only way to get to our world from Alter World is using these weird colored dots."_  
 _"Drugs are bad,"_ Jack said instantly. _"Says the one who's sleep-walking,"_ you retorted. _"And it's not ecstasy! They're spiritual... dots. It's hard to explain. Anyway, I swear I won't eat them."_  
 _"So you can get a magical dot and then come back to me?"_ Jack asked.   
_"Yea. But what about Anti?"_  
 _"What about him? Just leave him."_  
Your heart twisted. Leave him? He could have left you to die multiple times, but he never did.   
You could hear Jack's eye roll, even in your head. _"He'll be fine. He'll be waiting for you when you come back, and you can kiss him then."_  
 _"Jack!"_ You said, shocked. _"I've never kissed him. Don't get the wrong impression. I've only ever loved you."_  
 _"That true?"_  
 _"Of course it is!"_  
Jack fell into silence.  
 _"So how long will you be in my head?"_ you pressed.  
 _"I have no idea! I feel like I just got off the Tilt-A-Whirl at a carnival, and all I can think about is the way Anti kept putting his hands on you."  
"Sean."  
"What?!"  
"I love you. You're the one who makes me happy. Anti makes me scared and confused. You might look the same on the outside, but your heart is the one I fell in love with."  
"Yea, okay. And I guess if you had an Alter Ego... I would still be in love with you and not with her. Just so you know."_  
You smiled to yourself. _"Good to know."_ But did you have an Alter Ego? You'd never thought to check. You certainly weren't famous, but maybe there was one hanging around.  
Jack hadn't spoken for a while, and you panicked. You couldn't lose him now.  
 _"Jack?!"_ you shrieked in your own head.  
 _"Hey, relax! I'm here. Don't worry,"_ he answered.  
You breathed out in relief. _"Well, as much as I love you, I hope you don't stay in my head forever."  
"Why? Your head's probably just full of games."_ Jack put on his agitated elderly person voice. _"Darn kids these days! They don't even read books!"  
"I do too read!"  
"Fanfiction doesn't count."  
"Ugh! You're such a dumb."_  
You wished you could look at Jack as you said it. His hair and those eyes, and that contagious smile that would flit onto his face each time you teased him.   
You started towards the booth of the glowing spiritual orbs.  
 _"And onward she goes,"_ Jack narrated. _"With determination!"_  
"Get out of my head!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N): My reference to the "colored dots" is a real phenomenon. It is rare, but some children can see multicolored, floating dots at night. There are many scientific and spiritual speculations, but no concrete explanation for this strange anomaly.**


	9. Something, At Least

You approached the table with caution, aware that the cute little girls were likely more powerful than they seemed. Neither seemed to be paying attention to you- they were preoccupied playing with each other's hair. As you watched, the girl holding the jar of dots set it down to reach the other girl's hair. She combed her fingers through it carefully, giggling, and the girl's hair turned bright pink. "O.M.G! You look amazing, Blanch!"  
Now was your chance.  
You darted forward, pretended to be looking at wares from another table, and then snatched the jar in one quick motion. Success!  
The little witch girl turned and stared at you. "Seriously, could you be any more obvious? You're so stupid, you could be a human!" Her pink-haired friend, Blanch, laughed, a nasally sound that made it sound like she had a pencil stuck up her nose.  
You laughed along with them, trying to keep them distracted long enough for you to unscrew the lid and pocket a few dots. "Ha! Wow. Humans. That's just crazy!" you said. "I bet humans aren't even real, like the Loch Ness Monster!"  
The girls stared at you. "Of course they're real, stupid," Blanch said. "We all have a human. Where have you been for the last century? Do you still think the Earth is flat?"  
A familiar quiet voice sounded from behind you. "Okay, Blanch. Dismal. That's enough." You were struck first by the sad names that these girls had, and second by the fact that Anti stood right behind you.  
His abdomen was pressed into your back, and he felt so much like Jack that you leaned back into him slightly, comforted. You closed your eyes for half a moment before snapping to your senses and shoving the dots into your pocket. He wasn't Jack.  
You turned to glare at him, but his black and green eyes only stared back at you in shock.  
"Whatever," you snapped. "I forgot it was you."  
Anti's eyes narrowed. "Oh, that's all it is then?"  
You didn't answer.  
He inspected the tip of one of his claws, pretending it was much more interesting than you. "C'mon. I convinced Bodybuilder over there that you're a new employee in the castle." He looked back up at you lazily.  
"And what do you do once you get me in there? Kick me unconscious and then let the guards lock me up somewhere?"  
Anti rolled his eyes. "What will it take to convince you that I'm trying to help you?  
"Oh, I don't know, a sacrifice," you joked.  
Anti raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He spun in a circle, scanning the square as if looking for a good victim.  
"Kidding! I was kidding, Anti! Sheesh."  
"Well, I can't tell. It wouldn't be the first time someone has asked me for a sacrifice."  
You felt a bit nauseous at that.  
"Fine then," he continued. "If you trust me, let's go to the castle. Please? I know what I'm doing."

You hesitated for a moment, then nodded and motioned towards the castle for Anti to get a move on.  
"Bye Anti!" the little girl called Dismal shouted. "Oh, he's so cool!" she exclaimed to Blanch, forgetting to lower her voice. "If only we were older, then we could date him!"  
"Don't you think maybe that girl with him is his girlfriend?" Blanch said. "I mean, did you see the way they looked at each other? Aww!"  
You coughed and looked at the ground, red-faced. Anti paid them no heed, purposefully walking at an awkward pace so you would trip and run into him every once in a while.  
_"(Y/N)!"_  
You jumped at the sound of Jack's voice in your head.  
_"Oh, are you still sleep-walking over there? You haven't fallen into the river, have you?"_ you quipped.  
He laughed, and the sound sent the butterflies in your heart up into a tornado. _"Seriously,"_ he complained. _"What's taking you so long? I miss you. Come back to me."_  
"I will! Just hold on. If I do too much at once, he'll be suspicious."  
"... (Y/N)?"  
Anti had been talking to you, and you'd totally ignored everything he said. "Uh. I zoned out. What was that again?"  
Anti sighed. "I was just going to say that after we get things cleared up at the castle, we can go back to my apartment. To... you know..." He smirked and put his fingers up in air quotations. "Hang out."  
"Uh-huh." You nodded absent-mindedly.  
"What is with you?" Anti asked. "Do you have other voices talking to you in your head or something? You're always distracted."  
Okay, that hit a little too close to home. "N-no." Your voice wavered. You couldn't help it.  
Anti was standing next to you in a heartbeat. "Wait a minute. Is he getting through to you? Jack? Is he talking to you?"  
_"(Y/N), you have to go NOW!"_  
Jack's voice, demanding but full of concern.  
You looked at Anti's face, his eyes frantically searching yours.  
You leaned forward and gave Anti a quick kiss, barely a peck. He froze, stunned. "I'm sorry," you said, and quickly swallowed one of the dots. It rolled down your throat, a cold marble of guilt.  
You turned and ran from Anti, afraid that he'd grab you and try to drag you into the castle.  
Alter World began to slow like a lagging video game; the movements of the Egos around you were jerky and puppet-like. They started breaking apart into pixels until only blobs of mushed color floated around you.  
_Shit,_ you thought. _Jack was right. Those were drugs._  
And you fell like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Your landing was hard and watery, and you coughed as dirty water went up your nose.  
"(Y/N)!" Jack's familiar yell sounded nearby- but muted, like he was underwater.  
Strong arms gripped your waist and heaved you upwards and you spluttered, breathing in heavily.  
You had been the one underwater, in the River Shannon.  
Jack held tightly to you, pressing his face into your dirty, wet hair. You wanted to protest and ask him not to look at you when you were so gross, but you were too drained. You put all of your weight on him as if he was the only thing in the world holding you up.  
And so he held you.  
"Jack..." you said, shaking.  
He scooped up your wet form, tucking one arm beneath your legs and using the other to stroke tangled strands of hair from your eyes.  
The sun shone harshly in your face, and you squinted. It was daytime, and you hadn't realized how accustomed your eyes had become to the gloomy gray shades of Alter World.  
"My God, I'm glad you're safe," Jack whispered. "I'm taking you home right now. You're going to take a warm shower, and then I'm making you tea, and then we're going to pull out every game we own. And play them ALL."  
You smiled, too tired to laugh. When was the last time you'd slept properly? You'd been going non-stop, with Jack in one world and Anti in the next. "I think I'm too tired for all of them. Besides, don't we have to solve this Anti issue first? Brainstorm a bit?"  
Jack held you tighter. "Okaaaay... if you really want to sleep. I just want to spend as much time as I can with you. Besides, you didn't seem to think there was much of an Anti problem just a few minutes ago."  
You had kissed Anti, and you were almost as unhappy about it as Jack. It just felt wrong.  
"...You saw that?" you asked. Then: "There was nothing else I could do! He figured us out!"  
"I know," Jack said. "I'm sorry. You've been through a lot, and you're very brave. Just... don't worry. We'll get rid of him. I've got this."  
"How many times have you said that during games and then died instantly?" you teased half-heartedly.  
"Well, you're not dying on me. Not today." Jack leaned down to brush his nose against yours. You simply reached up to floof his hair before letting your limp hand trail down his cheek and cup the side of his face.  
"...I love you."  
You weren't sure if you said it to him, he said it to you, or you both said it at once. Your eyes closed. You were safe in the arms of the man who was starting to have a habit of saving your life.

The first time he'd saved you had been about a month or two after you first moved to Athlone. You were in a bad place then, angry at your parents and angry at yourself. You and Jack were already good friends by that point, but that didn't excuse what you'd done. The door to your bedroom was locked and you were pacing back and forth, your hands clenched as tight as knots.  
"I just don't know!" you screamed. You'd just gotten off the phone with your mom, and though she was supportive of whatever you wanted to do in life, she was not supportive of the fact that you didn't know.  
"Why do I have to decide NOW?! I can get a job. I can support myself. She doesn't need to call me from all the damn way overseas to recommend life choices! It's always, 'How about this? Oh, (Y/N), how about this?' I'm not ordering from a menu here, it's my DAMN life! I'll do what I want, when I want!"  
You looked angrily at the pictures on your desk of you with your family members.  
Something snapped in your mind and you went to town on them. Chucking them at the walls, beating them with your fists, and sobbing.  
At the end of it all you laid in the pile of broken frames and cried. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!"  
Jack had been editing some videos in his room, and as soon as he heard the end of your tantrum, he opened your door and crept into your room. You'd completely scratched up his walls and the desk he'd let you use, but he couldn't have cared less. He picked you up from the pile of broken glass and took you to the bathroom, where he cleaned out the cuts you'd given yourself from pounding on the frames. He held you for a while, then carried you back to your room and placed you near the door. You sat and watched while he cleaned up the mess you'd made. He never said a word the whole time. Had you ever even thanked him?

***********************************  
When you woke next, you were laid out on the couch in Jack's apartment with a cup of tea on the table behind you, as promised.  
You took a sip. It had a unique flavor, something like chocolate caramel. And of course, it had just the right amount of sugar.  
You had to thank him.  
You had to thank him for so many things.  
Where would you even start?

You stood and crept around the couch, making your way to his recording room. You peered through the crack in the door, but none of his recording stuff was out. You cleared your throat, and Jack whipped around. "Jack... er, Seán, I-"  
"You're awake!"  
He pulled you into his arms, then onto his lap before you could protest. "I'm playing Night In The Woods again! I know you love this game."  
You leaned forward excitedly. "Oh hell yes!" You took over Jack's mouse and began moving Mae around the screen. You paused. "But wait. That's not why I came in here. I have to thank you. You saved my life again, and I don't think I ever thanked you for that time... with the picture frames..."  
Jack kissed your forehead softly. "I love you, so it's my job to take care of you. Just remember that the next time you're falling in love with Anti, okay?"  
"I'm not. He just looks so much like you..."  
"In a few hours, we're going to take him out," Jack said suddenly.  
You looked up in shock, but Jack's face was grim.  
"I'm serious. We're going to Alter World through the portal. There's a shop in there that sells some powerful weapons- hopefully powerful enough to defeat the Alter Egos. But are you up for it?"  
You nodded. "If you want Anti gone, I'll do anything to make you happy. Whatever it takes."  
You paused for a moment to watch the text scrolling across the screen of Night In The Woods.  
"But how are we supposed to do this? You and me against a whole world? Is that enough?"  
"It'll have to be."  
"I wonder... do you think, um, Anti would help us? If we promised to spare him?"  
"He loves that creepy world more than anything. He won't let it be destroyed."  
Even as he said the words, Jack winced. You startled and looked into his frightened eyes. "Jack? Are you okay? Is he... talking to you?"  
After a minute, he regained his composure. "No, it's all good. Let's just relax for a while, okay, (Y/N)?"  
"Shouldn't we start training or something? At least make energy drinks? We're not prepared at all. We have nothing."  
Jack quoted your favorite line from Night In The Woods. "We're something, at least. Pretty amazing to be something at least. Am I right?"  
"Yea, well, **you're** definitely something. Look at you, walking into a battle blind. When will you plan for stuff?" You nudged him playfully, but he was genuinely worrying you.  
"Well, hey, I didn't plan for you to be in my life but we turned out okay."  
You looked at the computer before you, which had once been your only link to Jack. "Yea. We did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N): Hi to all of my readers and to all Jacksepticeye fans! I've been working on varying my word choice because someone recently told me that my writing is repetitive. Please let me know what you think!**


	10. The New Blue

There was a drawstring bag pulled taut across your shoulders, and you wore one of Jack's old t-shirts that he'd gotten from some convention. You wondered if this was what soldiers felt like when they went to war- packing things with sentimental value, wondering if they'll ever see their home again.  
Soldiers certainly didn't have to fight demons from an alternate universe.   
Nonetheless, Anti was right- sometimes humans were the real demons.   
You shook your head. You had to stop thinking about Anti like that. He just said that stuff to screw with you.  
You startled as Jack appeared in your doorway. "You ready?" he asked, phone in hand. Your mouth quirked up in a smile. "There's poor reception in Alter World," you said. He shrugged. "I just can't be without it. Or without you, which is why we have to put an end to this."   
He let his own bag fall by his feet and approached you, taking your face in his hands. A rush of excitement flowed through your body, and then his lips locked with yours, as easily as two puzzle pieces clicking in place. When you finally had to pull away for air, Jack took in a shuddering breath. "What was that all about?" you asked curiously. "Not that I mind! But you seem scared."  
"We're going into a world full of monsters, one of whom loves you and would also love to see my head detached from my body. Of course I'm scared."  
You shivered at the imagery. "That won't happen. We're ending this, like you said."  
Jack nodded once, retrieved his bag, and practically marched out the door.

You did want to end it. Come out on top, defeat the monsters, be the hero. It sounded so nice from an outside point of view- but there was a reason that storytellers no longer told stories with happy endings. They didn't happen. Sometimes the monsters and the heroes shared similar faces.  
You could almost hear Anti's voice in your head reminding you that Alter Egos weren't monsters. You thought of Dismal and Blanch, giggling like any ordinary school girls.  
Your hand subconsciously traveled to your other arm and found the scratch Anti had given you in his attempt to keep you safe.  
"(Y/N), what are you doing?" Jack called. Your dropped your hand. "Nothing. Coming. Why?"  
"It's Anti. He's... in my head again. I didn't want to tell you, but I don't want to keep things from you anymore. He wants to know when you'll be back. He says he..."  
Jack's voice caught in his throat and his jaw clenched. "What?" you pressed. "Oh, what the hell. He says he found a cool fossil and he wants to show it to you."  
You smiled a bit- you couldn't help yourself- until you saw Jack looking at you with longing. "I'm sorry. But do you see? The two of you are so alike." Jack sighed. "I know. I've been living with him longer than you have. Are you sure you want to do this? I don't want it to hurt you."  
"Seán, I don't love him."  
Jack's eyes flitted to the floor and he chuckled. "What?" you asked warily.  
"The way you use my real name. You only use it when you really mean something. I love that."  
"Oh." You considered this. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like Jack and Seán are two different sides of you. Jack is the funny gamer that everyone sees on-screen, but Seán is the genuine, real man that the subscribers don't get to see as often. And I get to live with him every day."  
Jack held out his hand to you, and you took it without hesitation. "Well then, Miss (Y/N)," he said, mimicking the voice of an honorable knight, "we are about to fight the most difficult battle of our life. The only one, really. Would you rather fight with Jack, or with Seán?"  
"Both, of course. You wouldn't be the same without either one."

Ireland preferred to be gloomy rather than sunny, but today was a rare day of good weather. As you and Jack reached the River Shannon, the wind coming off the water made you a bit chilly despite the sun. Still, you knew that heading back into Alter World would make you feel like your heart had frozen solid. "Do we have to go?" you asked, peering at the shimmering portal. One could easily glance over it if they weren't seeking it out.  
Jack dipped his head down so he could meet your eyes. "No. I'll do it alone; you stay here. I'll feel better if you do, actually." You rolled your eyes. "It was a rhetorical question, like asking, 'Do I have to go to work today?' It helps to motivate you. So the answer is 'Yes.'"  
Jack blinked at you.  
"Just tell me yes, Jack."  
"Yes."  
"Thank you."  
Gripping his hand tightly, you took a few steps closer to the portal. "Let's jump," Jack said suddenly. "We can pretend we're skydiving."   
"God, I love your optimism. Let's do it."  
"Parachutes at the ready..." Jack said, taking on an announcer's voice. "And... jump!"

The two of you landed softly, standing up this time. You didn't even feel disoriented. You looked at Jack in confusion. "The first time I came here, I felt like I'd been sedated. Why is it easier now?"  
"Your body's getting used to it, I think," Jack said. "But don't get excited. We don't want your body to feel at home in a demon world."  
"It's... it's called Alter World," you mumbled.  
"What?"  
You brushed him off, surveying your surroundings. The city was barely visible in the distance- you were in the middle of nowhere again.  
Your eyes widened in fear at the sight of the small gray shop that stood only a few feet from you. "Jack, Anti and I came here last time and we were attacked. We should go."  
"This little shop? Are you sure? It looks safe."  
"No, there was a witch here before and she was... ugh... I don't want to think about it. Let's go. Please."  
"We're safe here, (Y/N). Perhaps this shop is a bit creepier in the presence of certain Alter Egos... but we're both human, and it's fine. Trust me?"  
"Always."  
"Then let's go in."  
Jack opened the glass door and a shop keeper's bell rang with an unexpectedly friendly chime. There was a man around your age in the back of the shop. He moved around gracefully, rearranging objects on shelves. He glanced up when the two of you came in, and you froze at the sight of familiar blue hair. "Is that... Ethan?"  
"Of course not," the man said with a smile. "I'm just his Ego. Fortunately, we're not polar opposites like most. I inherited his gymnastics skills! Want to see?"  
Before you could reply, Ethan 2 did a cartwheel over some glass figurines. You held your breath, but he stuck the landing without even wavering. You gave him a polite round of applause. "So... what's your name, then, Not-Ethan?" Jack asked. "And why are you out in the middle of Apocalypse Land instead of in the city?"  
He rolled his shoulders back in a half shrug and half stretch. "I don't know. I wanted something to do, I guess. And you can call me whatever you like. Not-Ethan. Anti-Ethan. Dark-Ethan. I'm trying some things out." "Don't you want your own name? Like... er..." You glanced at his hair. "Cobalt? Like Cobalt blue?"  
"Works for me," he replied. "So what can I do you for today? When the witch is in, she specializes in potions and animals. But I mostly do the jewelry and weapons. They come hand in hand, as you'll soon learn."  
"We need a couple of sturdy weapons, is all," Jack answered for you. "We want to prepare for any possible scuffles- as a way to defend ourselves. Nothing too showy."  
"So maybe small daggers then, or short swords," Cobalt answered.  
He walked behind the front counter, gazing up at the wall behind it. You followed his eyes. Different weapons hung on display, most of them elaborate battle swords and scythes, nothing that you and Jack could carry into the city without being noticed. "Does anyone even buy those?" Jack asked, obviously thinking the same. "I mean, they're so cool-" he leaned forward to get a closer look- "but impossible to learn with. I mean, really."  
"Impossible, huh?" Cobalt pushed a strand of blue hair out of his eyes. "I practice with them daily." He yanked a samurai sword down from the wall with ease, and you almost flinched. He drew the sword from its case as if he was born to do it, whipping it out and pointing it at Jack, pretending to slash at him. "How's that for impossible?" You moved to step in front of Jack. You'd seen too many evils in Alter World to trust Cobalt right off the bat.  
He laughed and tucked the sword away. It slid back into the case with ease and latched in. "Relax. I wouldn't hurt a fly."  
"Well, I would, so we'd like some weapons, please."  
He raised an eyebrow. "Damn. Okay. Daggers, then, I'm thinking."  
Cobalt reached behind the counter and pulled out two small daggers with elaborately carved hilts. You picked the first one up and peered at it. "That's a lot of work for a tiny weapon," you commented. The carvings seemed to depict two men fighting over a stone. Maybe it was just your imagination, but the carvings of the men looked a lot like Jack. You looked up at Cobalt to find him smirking at you. "What is this?" you demanded. "Just a dagger. And very cheap, too."   
"Okay, okay, we'll take 'em," Jack said, pulling some euros from his pocket. Cobalt rolled his eyes. "We don't take that here. Honestly, Jack, are you new? You know we only accept bones. Luckily, we have an exchange here."  
You looked up in surprise. "You know Jack?"   
"He's identical to Anti- who else could he be? And I've never seen you in person, but I bet I can guess who you are too. You're Anti's girl, aren't you?"  
Your heart stopped. You were pretty sure Jack forgot to breathe.  
"I'm Anti's... Anti's... what?"  
"His girl. That's what he told me, anyway. Said you might stop by, and asked me to keep you safe- keep that witch out of your way. You're welcome."   
You were secretly pleased. You didn't want to be, but even after outright betraying him, Anti still wanted to keep you safe.  
It would definitely amplify the guilt of what you and Jack were about to do, but you'd taken on the role of soldiers now. It had to be done.  
"Well, tell him thank you," you said, nodding meaningfully to Jack. He got your gist- this affected nothing, and you two would move forward. For Jack's sanity. For your happiness. For the two of you. That's what you were fighting for.  
"We'll be going then," you added. Cobalt nodded, somehow still convinced that you were on Anti's side. He turned back to practicing with his sword.   
You and Jack inched towards the door. You kept one eye on Cobalt in the background and one on the front window as you passed by it. The necklaces with the YouTuber logos still sat on display.   
The witch had said that one of the stones was yours, and that you would come back for it. And here you were.  
For some reason, in that moment, you trusted the witch more than Cobalt. Appearances could be deceiving, and maybe the familiarity of seeing Ethan's Alter Ego was meant to distract you from the important contents of the shop.  
You brought your leg up in a roundhouse kick, breaking the glass with one Converse-clad foot. You snagged the septiceye symbol and threw it around your neck, grabbing Jack's hand and yanking him out of the shop. Cobalt looked up, barely even phased. "I would've just given it to you," he said, yawning in response to your violent action. You glanced back. "What?!" You were quite proud of your little heroic moment, and he was ruining it.   
"That stone was yours anyway. I thought you'd ask politely, but it turns out you're violent. I see why Anti likes you." He stepped out from behind the counter, one side of his mouth quirking up.   
"Those stones are used to protect the Ego they symbolize. Of course, you can hurt them with it as well, but why would you want to? You're his girl, right?"  
"Actually," you said, unintentionally rushing your words. "If I was anyone's girl, it would be this nerd." You jabbed your thumb at Jack. "And not Anti. **Never** Anti."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N): Hi to any Irish readers,  
>  I know I don't talk about Ireland all that much in this chapter specifically, but please let me know if I'm representing it correctly as a whole. Thanks!**


	11. The Invisible Man With The Invisible Green Hair

You left Cobalt behind, and he let you go without complaint. You kept looking over your shoulder, nervous that he'd decide to swing his sword at you. "(Y/N)." Jack's voice was quiet and calm, and that terrified you. You whipped around instantly. He stood near the side of the shop, staring at the ground. A long, bony finger stuck out of a pile of rocks, pointing accusingly towards the sky. Your hand shook as you reached for Jack's, entwining your fingers with his. He held on tightly and wrapped his other arm around your waist, pulling you to him. You took a step forward and he moved with you. No one was cracking jokes now.  
You rounded the corner and were hit with a wave of nausea as you saw the Macbeth-like witch from earlier, her head twisted at a backwards angle that certainly caused her death. Someone had thrown rocks on her in a bad attempt to cover the body.  
You turned and buried your face in Jack's shirt. "Oh God. Who did that? Why?"   
"(Y/N)," Jack whispered, and you felt his voice rumble in his chest. "I have to go."  
"What?" you pulled back in alarm. "You can't leave me! Go where?!"  
"Anti's coming. I can sense him. He...he knows you're here. I promise I'll be close by, and if he hurts you, I'll break his neck." "You think Anti did this?"   
"Anti did what?"  
You whipped around to find Anti leaning against the brick wall, frighteningly close to the witch's body. You turned again to glance back at Jack, but he had disappeared.   
You took a deep breath, ready to scream at Anti for everything he'd done to you and Jack.  
You found yourself sinking to the ground instead, a few tears escaping from your eyes before you wiped them away. You'd never seen a real dead body before, not like this, and it felt nothing like seeing dead bodies in video games.  
"I was just starting to trust you! I thought maybe you weren't a monster after all. Why would you do this?"  
Anti looked down at the witch and quickly stepped away. "Ah. No, this wasn't me. I asked Ethan's Ego to 'take care' of the witch, but that wasn't quite what I meant... Either way, she was no saint. She might have even deserved to die. Why do you care?"  
He looked back up at you, surprise registering when he saw you on your knees. He held a hand out to you to help you up.   
You paused to look at his clawed fingertips, reaching forward tentatively to run your fingers along them. Anti noticeably shivered. "What are you doing?" he asked, his voice low. "I'm... I don't know. Sorry. You're just so different."  
"Ha. You like to state the obvious, don't you?"  
He pulled on your hands, helping you stand.  
"Just everything about you. Your eyes, your hands, the way you talk..."  
Anti tilted his head, grinning. "You've been thinking about me. I like it."  
He kept his grip on your arm and used it to pull closer to you, his unnatural green irises peering right into yours. You closed your eyes, partially in denial and partially in contentment. Why were you enjoying this? "Anti, no."   
Two simple words, and he let you go. "Why?" he pestered, unwilling to let the subject drop.  
"I want to, but I can't. I love someone else. It's just not right."  
"Because we're so different?" Anti crossed his arms, studying you. "It used to be frowned upon to love another race or the same gender, and now it's fine. What's so wrong with this?"  
"You're not even human! And anyway, it wouldn't matter if you were. I love Jack."  
Anti held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not pushing you into anything, beautiful. Just let me know." Your face warmed instantly. "Then stop that!" you whined.   
"Stop what?"  
"Making me feel like this is okay!"  
You ran a hand through your hair anxiously.  
"Wait. What's that?" he asked. You looked around, expecting to see Jack. "Where?" "There, you dork." Anti pointed to your side.  
Your shirt had ridden up and your dagger was clearly visible. "Why do you have that?"  
"Oh, um... I bought it from Cobalt."  
"Cobalt?"  
"Ethan's Ego."  
"Oh." Anti stepped back towards you and looked at you, silently asking permission to remove the dagger from your side. You let him, and he inspected it. "A yin yang dagger. That's what they're sometimes called around here. Made for specific Alter Egos, with the ability to either protect them or destroy them. I see that this one is mine."  
"Yea, I was wondering about that. A weapon with the power to destroy you? Sounds like something you might want in your possession. Why didn't you buy it?"  
"I didn't want to. Besides, it looks better on you." He removed the dagger from its case and tested the weight in his hand. "I hope you have the charm that goes with it."  
You stared at Anti before realizing what he meant, pulling the septiceye from your bag. "There's Sam," he said, and you dropped it gently in his hand.  
He held the septiceye jewel to the hilt of the dagger, and a small hissing sound began to emit from it. The hilt began to glow like embers. Anti grimaced but continued to hold the dagger. The little jewel shrank down to the size of a fingernail and he clicked it into the carving of the stone between the two fighting men. He took a deep breath. "It's twice as powerful now." He handed it back to you.  
You ran your fingers over the jewel, but it was melded in tightly. "Why would you do that? I could destroy you with it."  
"But obviously you won't. I trust you, you trust me..." Anti winked. "And I know you would never use it to hurt me."  
Cobalt had said the same thing, and it was starting to get on your nerves. You could hurt Anti, and you would. Maybe he'd been nice to you and held you in ways that excited the butterflies, but that meant nothing. ...Right?  
Anti sighed and wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth. "We'll teleport into the city, then? Since you've found your own methods in and out of Alter World, there's no reason to take you to the castle."  
A pang of guilt shot through you. "Look, I'm sorry for leaving you like that, but I just wanted to get home and-"   
Anti shrugged. "Don't waste your excuses on me. We need to get going, but we should grab a few more things from Ethan's Ego first."  
Anti moved briskly towards the shop doors, nodding appreciatively at the shattered window. "Did you do this? Nice."  
You let Anti enter the shop first and paused at the window, pretending to straighten up the other YouTubers' charms. In actuality, you were trying to give Jack time to escape.  
When he didn't appear from his hiding space, you sighed exasperatedly and went looking for him. You rounded the corner of the gray brick and he brandished his dagger at you. "Hey!" you squealed. "It's me!"  
"Oh. Sorry." He tucked the dagger away expertly. "You're pretty good with that thing," you commented. "What can I say? Video games pay off." "So does that mean you can do parkour too, scale walls and stuff?" Jack grinned. "Maybe. Who knows? Okay, (Y/N). So here's the plan-" "You have a plan?" "Shut up! Listen for a sec. I'm going to have to go somewhere different and hide out. I'm going by the bridge over the River Shannon and I'll wait for you there. Make sure Anti doesn't get any ideas about where I've gone, and try to keep him away from the bridge too. Got it?"   
"I don't want you to leave me," you whispered, throwing yourself at him and wrapping your arms around his neck. "Not alone with these two. Did you see what Cobalt did to that witch? What if he does that to me?"  
"I won't let that happen," he replied, tilting your head up from where you'd let it fall to his shoulder. He kissed you. "Tell you what. I'll wait here until you're clear of Cobalt. At least I know Anti won't physically try to hurt you, but I can't be sure about the other guy. Does that make you feel any better?"  
"That Cobalt might kill me? Not really," you muttered.  
"(Y/N), what the hell are you doing talking to yourself out here?" Anti. You whipped around to warn Jack, but he was already gone. "I don't want to deal with checking you into a mental asylum. Plus you really don't want to be in an asylum here, of all places. The crazies in Alter World tend to lean towards the... murderous side."   
You rolled your eyes. "You're just trying to scare me."  
"Am I?" There was a loud clanging noise, and you finally turned to look at Anti. There was a pile of strange materials and tools at his feet, and he was sorting through them. "Got some cool stuff. We've got grappling hooks, levitation devices, all sorts of crazy shit. What do you think?"  
"It looks like a lot to carry," you said grumpily, but nerd that you were, you had to go investigate. "Why do we need all this?" You picked up a glowing blue ring and slipped it around your wrist. Your whole arm disappeared. "Ah!" you shrieked, and threw the ring off like it was hot.  
Anti chuckled. "Invisibility rings." He bent the ring so that it was slightly larger, and slipped it over his head like a choker. His head disappeared. "Ooh look, I'm the Headless Horseman!" "Very mature," you grumbled, but you couldn't help cracking a small smile.  
Anti took it off and his head flashed back into view. "What's got you in a bad mood all of a sudden?"   
Oh, just the fact that you were sort of in love with Anti and now you would have to destroy him.   
"Nothing much. Just really creeped out by the witch's body over there."  
It wasn't a lie. The two of you were standing too close to the body for your comfort.  
"Ah. Okay. Let's get moving then." He picked up half of the supplies and nodded to the other half. "That's for you to carry."  
You split your own pile of supplies and nudged some of them towards Jack's hiding space with your shoe. "Look. Cool shit," you whispered to him. "I heard," he said, keeping his voice low. He stooped down to pick up the pile. "But now I can just follow you." He began stringing himself with the invisibility rings; one for each of his legs and arms, and finally a larger one for the floating head that remained.  
"Jack?" you whispered. "Here," he answered, and you felt phantom arms wrap around your body. You startled a bit at first, but he felt as solid as ever. After a minute he laughed and said, "This is probably really weird."  
You turned around to face him. "Nah. I don't need to see you to know that you'll always be with me." Just to prove it, you closed your eyes and put your hands on his face, kissing him easily. "Wow, you don't even have to see me to do that," he said in surprise. "You must be really good. How many other invisible guys have you kissed?"  
You giggled. "Whatever, okay?"  
"(Y/N), what are you doing?!" Anti was marching back over to you. "Just looking for something!" you shouted, shoving your hand into the pile of supplies. "Um... uh..." you muttered frantically. "This. You're looking for this," Jack said quietly in your ear, and a cylinder-shaped object with holes in it seemingly floated out of the pile and into your hand.   
You waved it at Anti. "This! I found it!"  
Anti paused and tilted his head. "A stun grenade? Why?"  
You glared in Jack's general direction. "I dunno," he mumbled. "I just grabbed something that looked cool. I know! How about you throw it at him?"  
"It's to subdue you if you get out of hand," you told Anti determinedly.   
"Oh, really?" Anti closed the distance between the two of you, looming over you. "There's other ways to subdue me, (Y/N)." You looked away, your face going involuntarily red. You knew that Jack had seen your reaction when you heard him make a low growling noise and felt his hand grab yours.  
Unfortunately, Anti reached for the same hand at the same time.   
You didn't want to let go of Jack's hand, but Anti would figure it out instantly if you didn't, so you did.  
His claws entwined with your fingers, tracing gentle patterns on the back of your hand. Your breath caught.  
"Let's go then." He let you go abruptly and moved forward. You reached back for Jack's hand. "I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do. He would've found us out."  
There was a brief moment of nothing, and then the weight of Jack's hand appeared in yours. "I know. I just wish you didn't enjoy it so much."


	12. Start Game

Anti skirted around the bridge, leading you on a quicker route towards the city. He was strangely quiet, but on the other hand, you could tell that Jack was itching to break the silence. Every once in a while he would reach out for your hand, and you found yourself routinely awash with the relief that he was with you this time.  
You almost wished Jack would shout out an enthusiastic, "Top of the mornin' to ya laddies!" because the silence was deafening. There wasn't any interesting scenery to look at either; Alter World was as gray and ashy as always.  
You looked down at your own feet as they stomped through the dusty powder. You could see the slight shift of the dirt as Jack's invisible feet moved next to yours.  
There was one thing that stood out to you, and it was the strange swirling patterns in the ground. It seemed like this area used to be covered in water- perhaps from another river, another lake, or something else entirely. What had happened in Alter World? Why was the city the only part of this whole world that held true life? You decided to ask.   
"Anti, how come none of the Egos live out here? Is it because of the witch's shop? Is there something wrong with this area?"   
Anti turned, continuing to walk backwards, shifting the pile of items in his arms. You felt Jack stiffen beside you, and for a moment, Anti's eyes slid over to where he stood. Your heart pounded in fear and you darted over to Anti, helping him hold some of the supplies and intentionally resting your hand on his arm. Anything to keep his intention off of Jack. Anti's eyes were back on you instantly.  
"I don't know, actually. Personally I like it out here, but most Alter Egos like to stick together. We are very unique and thus very alone, even in this world, so we stay close to those who are like us. The government likes us to stay in the city, too- easier to track down Egos who forget to pay taxes, I guess. Among other things."  
"Who exactly is the government? You keep saying that, 'the government.' Do you have elections? Do you have a royal family or a president?"  
"That would probably be easier. Our government is mostly Darkiplier."  
You couldn't help but laugh. "Markiplier's Alter Ego is like, the president of your world?" You imagined a world run by Markiplier, full of goofy laws and fair rights for everyone. It would be a good world.  
Then you remembered that this was Dark, not Mark.  
Anti nodded. "Mark is one of the kindest and most charitable YouTubers, so on the other end of the spectrum, Dark is one of the most heartless and merciless. He's good at keeping everyone in line."  
"I thought he was your best friend."  
Anti smirked, moving an inch closer to you. "He is. Don't forget I'm one of the most ruthless, too. I'm not as nice to everyone else as I am to you, beautiful."  
He turned and began walking forward again, obviously convinced that he'd scared you. But you weren't having it. "And why? Why are you so nice to me?"  
"Don't pretend you don't know why."  
"I don't, so tell me."  
Anti sighed and shook his head, but he stopped again. You met his gaze head-on, waiting for his answer.  
Instead he motioned for you to draw your dagger. Your eyebrows knit together. "I don't want to attack you, Anti."  
It hurt to realize the truth of your words. You didn't want to harm him, but it was high time to get over that.  
"You couldn't attack me even if you wanted to," he said smugly.

Now that was a challenge.  
You nodded in Jack's general direction, but he didn't remove his invisibility rings or draw his dagger. Nonetheless, you felt him press against your back and you knew that he was ready.  
You flung the dagger free of its sheath and lunged at Anti, but it snagged on its leather casing and he easily sidestepped. You wrenched it free and went at him again, slashing and moving with no particular agenda.  
He moved as if in a dance, stepping back each time you went toward him and circling around you. He made it all look so effortless. For his grand finale, he grabbed at your wrist and lowered your arm, twisting the dagger out of your grip.  
He grinned, offering you the hilt. "Want to try again?"  
"I wasn't even trying," you panted.  
"Yes you were. If you'd like, I can show you how to really fight. I spend a lot of time training with- Cobalt, is that what you called him? - in his shop."  
He stepped behind you and you whirled, unwilling to let him walk behind you holding a dagger.  
"Come on, (Y/N)," he said, as if scolding a disobedient child. "If I wanted to kill you, I would've by now. There's been plenty of chances for me to do it."  
Reluctantly, you let him circle you again and put his arms around you, pressing against you. For a minute you could almost believe it was Jack, but then he rested his claws on your hands to help you hold the dagger properly. The air in Alter World was always too warm, but the added warmth of Anti and the leather that he wore was strangely comforting. And that scared you.  
You scanned the surrounding ground frantically, looking for the imprint that would indicate where Jack stood. You wanted him to hold you like this, not Anti. "Now, you want to hold the knife facing up towards the sky, not down. You're not running with scissors here."  
Despite your discomfort in him being so near to you, he did seem to be giving you useful tips. When he stepped back and let you try on him again, you managed to knick him on the arm. You looked up in surprise, but your gaze instinctively flitted over to Jack and not to Anti. "I did it!" you said proudly. Anti laughed. "Nice. You're a quick learner."  
Once he began walking again and motioned for you to follow, you felt Jack's presence as he moved to your side. "That was so cool," he whispered. "You have to show me how to do that. But remember, (Y/N), killing someone with a knife is just brutal. We should try to get our hands on some guns."   
You nodded in agreement. "Absolutely. I didn't ask for him to teach me that, you know."  
"I know. That's what worries me."  
Your hand fit naturally into Jack's again and you kept walking.

As you gazed disinterestedly around the barren landscape, your eyes focused on a red and black blur in the background. You squinted, shaking your head to clear it. Maybe you were hallucinating from walking in this nothingness for too long.  
But no, the blur was now taking on the shape of a person, and it was moving towards you. You let out a cry of surprise as it fizzled past you, leaving a residue of red energy. The crackling static red unmistakably belonged to Darkiplier.  
"Dark?" Anti asked, looking around.  
Dark appeared in between you and Anti. "Whoops. I overshot," he said, straightening his tie and cracking his neck. "Anti, the government needs you back in the city."  
Anti stepped closer to you, practically standing on top of you. He didn't look too eager to go with his so-called best friend. "What, are you his Vice President or something?" you asked.   
"Anti is very in-the-know about the happenings between Alter World and the normal world. He's sort of like our communications expert. We need his input on some strategies for..." he trailed off, looking at you as if seeing you for the first time. "Strategies for government-y things."  
Dark spoke of strategies as if Alter World was going to war. Or had they already been through one? That would explain all of the desolation.  
"Ah, well, if that's all..." Anti dusted off his hands, pantomiming finishing a day's hard work. "I'll give you my opinion. (Y/N), would you wait here? I'll be back for you in a few."  
"Wait," you said, reaching forward tentatively with one hand. "Don't you want my input? It is my world you're discussing, after all."  
Dark simply laughed at you. "Aw, how sweet. You think we care. You think we have any compassion for the humans who have villainized us," he practically spat.  
"Dark." Anti's voice was cold and landed sharply on the "k". You realized this was how he spoke to people when he wasn't being nice.  
He turned back to you, flashing his shark-tooth grin. "I care. I promise I'll be right back, (Y/N). You trust me, don't you?"   
"Yes." Your mouth felt heavy with the weight of the lie.  
Dark placed his hand on Anti's shoulder. You weren't sure if Dark teleported Anti or vice versa, but the two were gone before you could protest.

There were a few moments of warm quiet, and then a scuffling sound as Jack unwound the invisibility ring from his head. You grinned at the floating head before you. "You could scare the crap out of someone with that," you remarked. "Imagine seeing this in your window at night," Jack said, tilting his head at an unnatural angle. You tried to swallow your laughter, but it bubbled up anyway. "I can't take you seriously like this. You're a floating head."  
"Aw, c'mon, I'm not even a lil bit scary?"  
"Maybe to someone else, but not to me, you dork."  
Jack slid the rest of the rings off. "In all seriousness, though, (Y/N)- are you okay?"   
His concerned eyes were trained on your face, and he stood as if ready to spring into action if you so much as muttered a complaint.  
"I'm fine. I'm more worried about you. It has to be weird, watching someone who shares your face and mannerisms plotting against you."

"At least there's no question now that we're on different sides. No matter how nice Anti is to you, he still wants dominion over our world. You know that, right? You don't really trust him?" Jack asked. He kept shifting on his feet impatiently, waiting for you to command him to strike Anti down.  
"Of course I don't trust him, but hold on. We can't just run in blind."  
Jack finally calmed himself down, settling for simply bouncing his foot instead. "But I like to run in blind. It makes it more exciting."  
"Yea, me too, but this is real life. There's no save button in case we die."  
Jack pointed directly at you, fixating you with his intense gaze. "But we can fix that."  
You raised an eyebrow skeptically.  
"Not with an actual save button. I mean, we can have kind of a Plan B, a backup. We should look at this whole disaster like a game. It'll be easier that way."  
"Okay, shoot."

Jack explained that although there were no walls surrounding the entrance to the city, there was a force field that blocked everyone from entering or exiting. There were only a few ways around it, the easiest being to simply teleport through. Since that wasn't an option for you and Jack, you settled for the next best thing; you would have to scale the force field and enter through one of the weak points above the city.  
"Then we're gonna have to drop down, all stealthy and ninja-like," Jack said, trying to make his dangerous idea sound fun.  
"Have you done this before?" you asked doubtfully. "Yes, actually!" he retorted, acting offended. "When I first arrived here, Anti wasn't as kind to me as he was to you. My plans might be crazy, but they always seem to work out. Do you trust me, (Y/N)?" "Of course. But what happens once we're in the city?" "In phase two, we have to split up."  
Your eyes widened in panic. "But not for long," he said quickly.  
Jack's idea was to somehow sneak past all of the guards and into the castle. Dark and Anti would likely be finished with their government business, and they would've noticed by this point that the two of you were missing. "Let's hope that Anti keeps Dark out of it. Dark will kill us on sight. Anti'll be more merciful, at least to you."  
In the castle, Jack would try to break into some of the important government offices and figure out how Dark was planning to take over the normal world.  
In the meantime, your job would be to find a way to stop it. "How am I supposed to figure out how to stop them from taking over the world if I don't know how they plan to do it?" you asked, irritated. "I'll try to get the information to you as soon as possible. But until then, do anything you can. Ask around, make friends."  
You grunted. Making friends was not one of your specialties.   
"Fine, don't make friends, but at least get people to trust you. Gather intel. Can you do that much?"  
You shrugged. "Guess so. I think I need to watch a tutorial first."  
Jack smirked. "I think the time for tutorials is coming to an end. Time to play."


	13. The Thorns Don't Stand A Chance

"How about you go? I'll just wait here and, um... keep look-out."  
You and Jack had tested the strength of the force field by throwing some clumps of ashy rock at it, which had promptly fizzled and disappeared in a shower of sparks. The force field seemed to have similar mechanics to an emancipation grill from Portal, and you didn't want to find out what it would do to a human body.  
This being said, the only way to get through it without a teleportation device was to go up and over.  
As you sifted through your pile of materials, trying to find something to help you out, Jack's fear of heights kicked in.   
"I'm following your plan, Jack. What else do you suggest we do?"  
"I know, but I was kind of hoping we'd find some way to get through it. I can't go up that high! And then, if we do get up that high, we have to find a way down. We'll probably have to jump down!"  
"Chill out for a second. We'll figure something out."  
You picked up a grappling hook and studied it. You'd never actually used one in real life, but how hard could it be?  
You swung it around a few times and threw it towards the giant emancipation grill. It slid down a few feet, then sizzled and burst into nothingness, leaving you with a broken string in your hand.  
"How's that workin' out for ya?" Jack teased. "You try something, then!" you shot back.  
Jack picked up what Anti had described as a "levitation device." It was an oval-shaped piece of metal, holed out in the center, with glowing screws lining the inside. You couldn't make heads or tails of it, but Jack nodded knowingly.  
He picked up a screwdriver and began screwing the device into the rim of his shoe. You looked at him in astonishment. "How did you know that was supposed to go there?"  
He shrugged. "I'm good with building and screwing and things."  
You coughed, but clearly he hadn't noticed his choice of words.

As soon as he got the last screw in place, his foot shot up into the air. "Ah!" Jack panicked, hobbling along with one foot in the air. "Find another one! Quick!"  
You helped him screw another one to his other shoe, and soon he was hovering a few feet off the ground. "This isn't so bad," he said, flying himself around like a drone. "But how do I go higher?"   
"More importantly, we don't have any more of those. What do I do?" you asked, stooping down to sift through the pile. Rope, some extra bags, a pair of socks...? Why would Anti give you all this stuff? It was almost like he expected you to perform a daring escape mission and wanted to help you along.  
You went to turn back to Jack, but arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you backwards. You flailed your arms frantically, but Jack held tight. "Quit it! It's hard enough for me to control these things as it is."  
"Sorry," you said, tucking yourself against him so you were easier to hold.  
You loved when Jack held you because his arms could almost go around you twice, and he never let go when he knew that you needed to be held, even if you protested. You curled your arms against him, remembering how similarly he'd held you when you smashed the picture frames all those years ago.  
Jack supported your head gently with one hand and kissed your forehead. "As much as I'd love to float here with you all day long, the quicker we get going, the quicker we can get home and be alone."  
You raised your head to meet his piercing blue eyes, and nodded determinedly. "Let's go up."  
Jack smirked. "Yea. I don't know how."  
You wrapped your ankle around his, tapping against the side of his shoe and trying to find some sort of switch or button to make you go higher. When you hit the back of his heel, the two of you shot up like a rocket.  
Jack let out a shout of surprise and squeezed his eyes shut, clinging to you. Heights had never bothered you, and you repositioned yourself in Jack's arms so you could peer over his shoulder.   
"Hey!" He held you tighter. "Where are you going?!" You rolled your eyes. "Obviously nowhere, unless I want to fall and die."  
"Oh."  
You couldn't see much over Jack's shoulder besides the River Septic and the ashy ground. You twisted again and saw the city coming towards you with surprising speed. Too fast. Much too fast.  
The windows of the castle were flashing on and off like emergency lights, bursting with fiery red light and then dipping back to darkness.  
"Jack!" you screeched, tapping the back of his heels again, trying to get the levitation devices to turn off. "You might want to stop now!"  
"Okay," Jack replied, and the two of you dropped.   
The emancipation grill over the city looked the same as the ones surrounding it, and you were almost positive that it would kill you just as effectively.  
"Up! Up! Back up!" you screamed, and just like that, the two of you froze in midair and began to float back up slowly. "H-how are you doing that?" you asked Jack, trying to still your heart. "I thought we were controlling it with something on the back of your heel."  
Jack shook his head. "I've just been thinking about where I want to go, and then it listens to me. It must be connected to my brain somehow. I did have my eyes closed for part of it, so sorry if we went in the wrong direction."  
You placed a hand to your forehead in frustration. "Wrong direction? Try near death experience."  
"Sorry, (Y/N). You know I suck with heights. We're okay now, though!"  
You looked back over at the castle, where the windows still flashed rapidly. You hoped the two of you hadn't tripped an alarm system. The red color made you think of fire engine sirens and red laser sights on a gun.  
Jack flew down close to the emancipation grill, looking for some type of opening or landing. What if the two of you had been wrong? What if the only way in was through teleportation?  
"There!" Jack shouted, and dipped down with such speed that you were sure you'd left your soul behind at the top. A few feet away from the castle, the emancipation grill was missing, sparking and broken in as if Thor had smashed it with his hammer.  
Jack shifted you in his arms. "Okay, we're going to have to drop down there soon. I'm starting to get tired." You frowned. "Am I really that heavy?"  
"Of course not, but you are an adult. You're no feather." You tried to detangle yourself from Jack and just hold onto his hand. "Here, maybe this'll be easier-" "Ah!" he yelled in surprise as your movement caused him to unbalance. He pulled you back in. "See, (Y/N)? I can't be without you for even a second. I can't even stand up straight without you." He kissed you on the side of your nose and you blushed, looking away.  
With one last glance at you, Jack began to maneuver himself through the broken section of the roof. You looked down, trying to scout for danger while he focused on piloting. Despite being so near to the castle, there were very few Egos walking around near here. You decided that the security presence would likely be high and that, like humans, most Egos would prefer to stay out of the way of security.   
You couldn't understand why people reacted like that to police. You'd always held police and security in the highest regard, viewing them as protection and not enemies. You yourself had wanted to be the police for a while. You'd eventually come to terms with the fact that it wasn't as glamorous as it seemed. All the horrors and death that police officers had to deal with on a daily basis... well. It was certainly no video game.  
Nonetheless, maybe the guards had asked the Egos to stay away. Or maybe they were meaner than human police. They did look scarier.

Every once in a while you would motion for Jack to pause in his descent while an Ego passed by. You could see that Jack was aiming to land in a secluded alley full of trash cans and not much else. You waved your hand for him to continue and the two of you finally alighted with only a slight stumble.  
Grabbing Jack's hand and pulling him along with you, you peered around the corner of the alleyway. The lights from the castle windows reflected onto the cobblestones, now changing from red to green. "Really early Christmas decorations?" you whispered to Jack.  
"Maybe just a dance party with strobe lights," he answered. "We should go. Pull a Party Hard, disguise ourselves and take everyone out." You nodded seriously. "Sounds like a plan."  
"(Y/N), no! I was joking. We already have our plan, remember? I sneak in, and you be the spy and gather information."  
You were about to laugh off your nervousness when you heard footsteps behind you and saw a looming shadow out of the corner of your eye.  
You reached for your dagger, but Jack was faster, pushing you protectively behind him and brandishing his own.  
"Get back," he snarled.   
You'd expected to see Anti or Dark or maybe both, ready to pull you away from Jack and back into their world.

Instead it was a short teenage girl, and one that you recognized. She winced as the thorny wings on her back plunged into her shirt. Blood dripped down her back, soaking through the tatters of her shirt. You'd seen her when you were first in the city with Anti. Was that days ago, or merely hours? Time here moved in a broken blur of nightmares and gray ash.  
"Excuse me, I'm sorry," the girl whispered quietly. She took a step forward, ignoring Jack's knife, and peered up at him. "Anti? Are you Anti? There's something not quite right about you."  
Despite your muffled protestations, Jack lowered his dagger. His good heart got the better of him and he looked at the girl in concern. "My God, what's happened to you? What's your name?"  
The girl fixed her shirt almost shamefully. "I'm Daisy." She laughed. "They ignored my thorns and named me for a flower."  
Jack sheathed his dagger, but you still stood on edge. This world was too ruthless for you to be deceived by the innocence of a young girl. "How old are you?" Jack asked. "Uh, fourteen. And you're not Anti. Oh! I bet you're Jack." She looked pleased with herself. "I've read books about you. There's only a small library in Alter World, but my favorite book is a big dictionary of all the YouTubers from the normal world."  
Daisy twisted away as her wings reared up, ready to plunge into her back again. They sunk in anyway, and she sagged in defeat.  
Your heart broke. This poor girl hadn't asked for this.   
In one swift motion, Jack pulled off his sweatshirt and wrapped it around Daisy's back to give her some extra padding from the thorns.   
"Thanks," she said, looking up at him as if he were an angel. And maybe she thought he was- the two of you had just descended from the sky.  
"We need to get you to a hospital," Jack said, turning Daisy around to look at her injuries. She pulled back and shook her head adamantly. "I can't. My parents... they wouldn't like it. They prefer to pretend that the thorns aren't there. They tell me to live normally, and to just be happy. And I don't want to disappoint them, so it's what I have to do."  
Jack took Daisy by the shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug. "You don't have to sacrifice your own happiness for theirs," he said, just loudly enough for you to hear. "Even if they don't understand, there are people who will. Don't try to ignore your problems like that, okay? Sometimes it takes more than just putting on a smile and pushing through. It'll get better, but you have to do something about it for that to happen."  
You watched in shock and alarm as tears began to run down Daisy's face in streaks. "It hurts," she said. "I just wanted someone to see that, to not look away, to not look to someone or something happier. I... I'd like to try to find a doctor, maybe get the thorns removed. It's actually where I was headed, but I started having second thoughts."  
Jack pulled her closer, shutting his eyes and breathing in deeply. Daisy mimicked his pattern of breathing until she'd stopped crying.  
The effect that Jack had was almost otherworldly. It was as if he passed on his determination and happiness with only his presence.   
"You can do this, Daisy. I believe in you, even if no one else does," he said quietly. "You don't even know me," Daisy cried out. "It doesn't matter," Jack said, shaking his head adamantly. "Sometimes all we need is the support and love of a stranger to push ourselves forward."  
Jack let Daisy hold onto him for as long as she needed to, until she finally let go and backed away of her own accord. "Thank you," she whispered again. With a simple dip of her head, she turned and disappeared into the shadows, the golden glow of nearby street lights reflecting off of her black wings.

Jack turned back to you, and you stood open-mouthed. He looked at you, his eyes completely serious and filled with something like respect.  
"What? She needed a friend," he said in response to your silence. "I know," you breathed out. "I just realized... that's what you did for me when we first met. You pulled me out of hell. You had that same effect on me, and I didn't even know you were doing it."  
Jack shook his head, crossing his arms. "I didn't pull you out of anything- you chose to live your own life and to move beyond your parents' expectations. I'm not a magic man. I don't have an 'effect'. I gave you my support without any judgement, and you turned it into something amazing."  
Jack closed the distance between the two of you so quickly that you barely registered the movement. You simply blinked and he was there. Like he'd always been there. Like it was where he was meant to be.  
"You became someone strong, and funny, and so smart. You let your inner personality shine through once you stopped letting doubts and expectations hold you back."  
"But I still have doubts, and people still expect things of me. Hell, my parents are still pissed that I don't have a solid career yet. Nothing is resolved."  
"Of course you still have doubts. You're human. You still have problems, because that's life. I'm not perfect, (Y/N)- I still have problems, too. But that doesn't mean nothing is resolved. You're a different person now. Around this time many years ago, you sat in a room full of broken picture frames." Your breath hitched. He knew. You looked into his eyes, and somehow he knew how lost you'd been that day. How his coming to your rescue at that fateful moment had been your turning point.  
"You are not the girl you were back then." Jack said it like a promise, and you believed it with every fiber of your being. "I know that. You know that. You may not know exactly who you are yet, but you have the rest of your life to figure that out. There's no rush, and you don't have to listen to anybody but yourself. You're on the way to figuring out who you are, and that is definitely important. And I'm lucky enough to be in love with you, so I get to watch as you decide who you are. And I get to learn some new things about myself, too. If you'll have me, of course."  
You laughed through the tears that had started a while ago and had yet to stop. "You really think I'd turn you away after all that?!"  
You grabbed the collar of Jack's t-shirt and pulled him to you, bringing your lips to his in a kiss that felt like fire. Fire and risk and reality, but a reality that you could handle- that you could take by force with Jack by your side. He pressed back, cupping your face with his hand, breathing life into you. You'd always known at your core who you were and what you believed. This was your story, your game. And it was time to face the villain.


	14. When Alter World Falls Dark

Jack kept himself plastered to the wall, hidden in the shadows. Alter World always seemed to be in a state of constant gray, but right now the shadows were thicker. It must be the Alter Egos' equivalent of nighttime- if they even slept.  
Jack had insisted that (Y/N) stay hidden in the alley while he crept around the guards. It was a small group of security- a big burly man with a cigar, a delicate woman wearing white lace that seemed to run with trails of black sludge, and a thin man sprouting a fox's ears and tail.  
Other than the large man, none of these people looked like a proper police force. Still, Jack knew that he shouldn't disregard them completely. The fox man bounced on the balls of his feet- he was probably fast, and could surely catch Jack in a heartbeat. The delicate woman had shifty eyes; she would be the first to spot Jack if he made a wrong move. And the burly man would have him in a choke hold faster than he could blink.  
Jack glanced back at (Y/N) and gave her a thumbs-up. She raised an eyebrow and he knew she wasn't buying his false confidence, but he had to do this. It was the only way to be rid of Anti forever, and to make sure (Y/N) was safe.  
Despite Anti's insistence that he and Jack were polar opposites, Jack knew that at least one thing was the same- their love for (Y/N). He didn't know what lengths Anti would go to make (Y/N) his, and more importantly, he didn't know what (Y/N) would agree to. Jack knew that she had at least some feelings for Anti, and it wasn't his place to tell her to feel differently. Romantic feelings for someone weren't easily changed- and besides, (Y/N) had spent her whole life being told what to do and how to feel. He wasn't about to do the same.  
Jack continued to move along the wall, afraid to move too fast but also afraid to crouch down lest he be spotted by Shifty Eyes.  
He motioned carefully for (Y/N) to go and get on with her part of the plan. The sooner she was out of the danger zone, the clearer his mind would be.   
The next time he glanced back to look at (Y/N), she was gone. He felt the pang of her loss, but also relief.  
Jack turned back again and saw that Shifty Eyes and Fox Man were gone. Only the burly man still stood, his chin dipping down to his chest as he nodded off to sleep. The cigar dropped out of his mouth and lay on the ground, trailing smoke.  
Jack had gotten stuck with the lazy night watch. Apparently the Irish really were lucky.  
Aware that the guard might be faking it in an attempt to draw him out, Jack continued to creep along at a snail's pace. The windows flashing with red and green light were high above him now, and he had to tilt his head back to see them. The castle was even bigger than it'd originally looked from the sky.  
The building itself was made of drab stone with none of the ornate decorations or accents that usually adorned castles. It looked sturdy enough but built for a singular purpose- not to draw attention to the rulers of Alter World, but to protect them and whatever secrets they were hiding.  
Secrets that might be associated with the jolly holiday lights strobing from the windows.  
Once Jack had inched along enough that he reached the corner between the face of the castle and the side, he stopped. The burly man still hadn't moved. Jack took a deep breath, held it, and darted across to the castle wall. He stood in silence for a few moments, trying to gauge whether he'd been heard. He tilted his head back and looked up again, squinting at the bright windows. The levitation devices were still attached to his feet, and they were probably the easiest way up, unless he wanted to scale the castle wall. He was out of immediate sight of the burly guy, although Fox Man and Shifty Eyes might still be around. Still, it'd be safer to get up and out of their reach than to circle around the castle numerous times, looking for a better way in.  
He thought, _Take me up, shoes._  
No response.  
He thought, _Please._  
Jack shot upwards and barely managed to force down his yell of surprise. It still seemed impossible that he could actually fly, but here he was. He grabbed onto the windowsill just as the lights flashed red. For some reason, this came as a warning sign for him to stay still. The devices turned off without his having to ask and he hung there, slightly terrified.  
Only when the lights turned green did he feel safe enough to clamber over and drop inside.  
Jack had landed in what seemed to be an ordinary office except for a few minor details. Whereas most offices where covered in dirty, coffee-stained carpet, this one had cobblestone, like the streets outside. The walls and the desk were lit by dim torches instead of electrical lighting. The torches currently pulsed with green fire and soon switched to red, causing the appearance of strobe lights that Jack had seen from outside.  
Jack wandered over to the desk, which was stacked with a pile of Manila file folders. He opened one and his heart jumped into his throat. (Y/N)'s picture was printed there and on every sheet of paper following it, with the words "Wanted Alive" printed beneath.  
He slapped the file folder shut and turned to go when he noticed a mason jar full of strange marbles sitting near the computer on the desk. His mind flashed back to a strange conversation he'd had with (Y/N), one carried on in their minds.  
"The only way to get to our world from Alter World is using these weird colored dots."  
These had to be what (Y/N) was talking about.  
Without thinking twice, Jack unscrewed the lid to the mason jar and dumped the dots in his jeans pockets. They didn't make any noise as he walked, almost as if they weren't actually there. Strange.

Jack paused in the doorway when he heard voices coming from across the hall. The hallway seemed full of offices similar to the one he was in, and he darted across to the nearest one with an open door so that he could hear better. The voices seemed to come from a large conference room all the way at the end of the hall.  
Jack heard Darkiplier's low, reverberating voice first.  
"Well, where was the last place you saw her?" he demanded.   
"Same place you saw her- right outside the city. She can't have gone far. I'll find her." Anti's voice, quiet and deadly.  
"You better."   
"And you better watch it, Dark. I'm your friend, your second-in-command... not your servant."  
"She's our passage out of here. If we can use her as a link, then we do it. When the time comes, you'll be on board. Or I'll stick someone else in your place."  
Whenever Dark spoke, the torches in the halls flashed red. When Anti spoke, they were green. The two seemed to be fighting for control, both verbally and supernaturally.  
The voices went quiet and Jack panicked when he heard footsteps echoing on the cobblestones.  
He held his breath, pressing himself behind the door of the office he was in. When the footsteps moved beyond his range of hearing, he breathed out slowly-  
and was slammed back into the wall with dizzying force. Anti was there, his forearm at Jack's neck, but his claws were tucked out of the way.  
"You moron!" Anti hissed. Jack stared Anti down, refusing to look away or be frightened at seeing his own face with shark teeth and inverted eyes.   
"You really think I care what you call me? Leave (Y/N) alone, Anti. Please."  
Anti eased up on Jack immediately.   
"I'm not trying to hurt her, if that's what you think. This is all Dark." Anti looked away. "Yea, I want the Alter Egos to be able to live in the normal world... but I want to keep (Y/N) out of it. I want her to be happy. I want her to be mine." Jack's fists unconsciously clenched and he took a step forward to confront Anti. The Ego's head snapped back up so suddenly that Jack jumped back.  
"I hate you, Jack. I hate you for loving her, but also because I know she loves you. And as long as she loves you, you're in no danger from me. All the same, there is still danger. You were stupid to come here. If Dark catches you, there's nothing I can do. You know that. You need to go."  
"If I go, you'll convince Dark to leave our world alone?"  
Anti shook his head. "I'll convince him to leave (Y/N) alone. But the Alter Egos... we need to live in the normal world. This world is too small, too broken. We need yours."  
"You can't," Jack said instantly, but he was debating with himself. Was it fair to make them stay here? Maybe not to Egos like Anti, but what about ones like Dark? Dark wanted nothing more than to see all humans turned to dust.  
Anti's head turned infinitesimally back to the hallway, which was now lit by a red glow. "Anti? That you?" Dark called. Anti shoved Jack towards the window. "Go."  
 _Out and down,_ Jack thought frantically at the levitation devices, forgetting to be polite.  
 _Please please PLEASE,_ he added.  
Jack was thrust forward so quickly that he barely managed to get his fingers on the edge of the window to lift it up before he was slammed outside. He could feel the sticky, warm air on his face as he began to slow and floated down towards solid ground. It was only when Jack looked down that he realized the levitation devices had screwed him over.

The delicate woman with the shifty eyes stood just beneath him, smirking up at him and watching his descent. She reached up as if trying to catch a snowflake.  
Jack yelped and clawed frantically upwards, but the devices on his shoes still seemed pissed about his lack of politeness.  
 _Up. Up, please. I'm going to die. Please!_  
Jack froze in midair, although he didn't move upwards. He looked down gratefully at the devices, but they'd come unscrewed from his shoes and fell to the cobblestones below with a clatter. He was currently being held in place by the delicate woman, who had one hand splayed out towards him as if asking him to stop.  
As he watched, the streaks of black sludge on her dress began to run backwards up her body, moving away from the frills of her dress, racing up her neck and dripping back down over her wrists and hands like dirty water.  
The sludge curled around her outstretched hand, turning into a whirling black tendril that shot out and latched onto Jack's leg. He tried to struggle, but a second strand secured his other leg.   
The woman lowered her hands, carefully maneuvering him to the ground as well. "Thank you," Jack said, breathless once he'd finally touched down. "God, I feel like Peter Pan who has just been betrayed by his pixie dust. Those levitation devices are really picky!"  
The woman smiled and tilted her head, but said nothing.  
"Wouldn't go thanking her just yet there, Jack."  
Jack closed his eyes, cringing inwardly. Of course. Couldn't he just get away easily? Where had his luck run off to?  
Darkiplier stepped out of the entrance to the castle, brushing imaginary dust off his suit. He glared at the snoring burly man and nudged him until he awoke. The Fox Man was behind Dark, darting in front of him and back behind him like an excited puppy. The delicate woman looked at Jack apologetically and handed her liquid ropes to Dark.  
Dark took them and stopped a few feet from Jack. "Oh, don't worry. Nothing against you because you're Jacksepticeye," he said, his image shaking unevenly, lined by blotches of red and blue color.  
"Oh, good," Jack said nervously. "You're kinda creepy, you know, man. If you could just let me go, that'd be great."  
Dark grinned. "Not so fast. I don't care that you're Jacksepticeye, but you're human, and that bothers me. Your human friend, Anti's little pet? She bothers me. So once she realizes you've been caught, she comes looking, and I kill two birds with one stone. Reasonable, don't you think? Logical. Not creepy."  
"You really think you're all that, don't you," Jack stated in an unimpressed monotone.   
Dark rolled his shoulders back, and a strand of black hair fell into his amused eyes. "Aren't I?"


	15. Copper And Salt

You decided to follow Jack's lead and stick to the walls of the buildings. Although you were moving away from the castle, there was still a chance that some wandering night owls would approach you out of curiosity.  
You had no idea who you were supposed to be looking for. Were you just supposed to stop any random Ego and say, "Hey, excuse me, does your government have some kind of secret evil plan? And how would I stop that plan, do you think?"  
Then again, people in the normal world loved to toss around conspiracy theories. Maybe it was the same way here. You considered doubling back and trying to find that girl Daisy. Or what about the middle schoolers, Dismal and Blanch? They might be young, but they'd known a lot about portals between the worlds.  
You continued forward towards the center of the city, where their table had been set up. They must live around there somewhere- you could go door to door and look, maybe pretend to be selling Girl Scout cookies.

You paused in the shadow of a building. The middle of the city square was very open and would leave you vulnerable, but you were running out of options. The lighting in the square dimmed suddenly, and you looked back at the castle. The flashing red and green lights had fallen dark, leaving the windows black and gaping like screaming mouths.  
Turning your back on the castle and the monsters within, you only had time to take one step towards the square before a quiet voice said, "Hey. Wait."  
You pulled your dagger and turned to point it into the alleyway next to you.  
"Over here, beautiful," Anti called from behind your shoulder. You whirled again and he was there, hands on yours around the knife. You grunted and pulled away, nicking his palm. He frowned and watched you expectantly, waiting for you to attack.  
You moved your hand to the side of your body, opening your fist and letting the weapon fall to the ground. You could never hurt Anti.

Anti leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. "You have something you want to say to me?" he purred.  
You wanted him to put his arms around you, to hold you. He wasn't Jack- you'd realized that long ago. But he was different and dangerous, and he made you feel alive.  
"Anti. I just want you to-"  
You reached out to him somewhat pitifully, but desire flashed in his eyes and suddenly he was in front of you, hands on your face. "I know," he whispered, tracing your face with one finger. His touch was gentle for such sharp and deadly claws. He traced the edges of your face and cheeks, your nose, each of your eyes. His fingers trailed down your neck and you sighed. His eyes followed the movement, seeming to watch your skin, studying it like a complicated pattern. He moved as if you were a fragile flower that he might snap if he was too rough. His fingers tangled in your hair and those haunting, inverted eyes found yours. "I love you. (Y/N)," he said. You wanted to protest, but he made you lose all rational thought.

Anti eased your head back and his lips found yours. The kiss was slow, soft, the ghost of something foreign. He tasted like copper and salt.  
No...not just copper... blood. Blood and old tears that you'd stopped shedding long ago. It was like a taste of your past, of the broken person that you once were. And suddenly, you didn't want it. Not at all.  
Anti sensed that you were pulling back, but he seemed to mistake it as a need for air and not a loss of feeling. He pulled back too.  
"I won't let them hurt you," he growled, pulling you towards him. "Not now. I promise."  
Just like that, your thoughts snapped back into focus. You pulled back with more force this time. "Who's going to hurt me? What's going on?"  
Anti murmured something into your hair and pressed closer. Your heart did a fluttering dance that you tried your best to ignore. "I mean it, Anti. Tell me."  
He sighed and pulled away.

"Darkiplier. He's holding your beloved gamer, Jack. He wants to use the two of you as a link to transfer Alter World into the normal world somehow, something to do with those colored dots you used last time. But I promise I won't let him touch you." Anti smoothed down your hair. "You're safe with me."  
You ignored Anti completely. Your mind had gone into overdrive after hearing that Dark was holding Jack. You were going to kill him. Destroy him. Why wouldn't Anti tell you sooner?! You'd gotten Anti's magical dagger from the shop, but you never would've thought to get Dark's. How would you kill him? What would be the easiest way to get into the castle? Where would Dark hide Jack?  
"(Y/N)..." Anti had finally noticed your furious silence and reached tentatively for your face again. Why wouldn't you tell me!" you yelled, tearing away. "He could be dead by now!" Your eyes widened and you stepped back. "You. I bet you're in on this. You and Dark are all buddy-buddy, aren't you?"  
Anti's face fell. "(Y/N), you know that's not true. Don't look at me like that. Please. Not you."  
"How do I know that's not true?" you retorted. But Anti's eyes were genuine. "I've got no way to prove it, but when I heard Dark coming, I tried to get Jack out of there as soon as I could. I came to find you because if I didn't, Dark would have."

"I can handle myself! You didn't have to hunt me down like some kind of animal. And you certainly didn't have to involve Jack and I in your plans for world domination."  
Anti opened his mouth, but no response came out. He looked away. A drop of blood fell down his face. At first you ignored it, but you noticed that it was coming from his eye and not his mouth. "Anti? What- are you crying?"  
Anti laughed. "Isn't it stupid? Crying blood. Like I'm from a Disney channel Halloween movie."  
You smirked a little and he shook his head, almost in disbelief of himself.  
You moved over to him and he tried to block your view of his face. You pulled his hand away and wiped off the thick, red tear. "I can't forgive you yet," you whispered. "But I don't hate you. And I'm not afraid of you." You placed a gentle kiss where the tear had been.  
Anti watched without a word as you turned and ran back in the direction of the castle, dagger drawn. It might be the wrong dagger and you might be walking into a trap, but you would do anything to get your Seán back.

Each time your feet hit the cobblestones below you, you could feel your skull rattling in your head. You were a gamer, not a runner, but the rush of adrenaline and the urgency of Jack's situation were enough to give you an extra boost. You wanted to scream. You wanted Dark to know that you were coming. Maybe "Top of the mornin' to ya laddies!" would be your battle cry. You laughed at the ridiculousness of it and stumbled, barely catching yourself before you face-planted.  
"Hey! Miss!" someone called, and you turned to run backwards, trying not to slow your pace. "Yea?" you called out, trying to identify the voice. A small shape bobbed towards you, holding something in its outstretched hands. It was the little witch girl, Dismal. She wore black silk pajamas and was offering you the jar full of dots. "You better take this."  
You didn't argue, but you had to know more. "What? Why?"  
You were relieved when Dismal began to run with you. "Dark plans to use those dots to take over your world. If you want to stop him, you better make sure you take all the dots with you when you leave. All the rest are in his castle, I think, in the offices."  
You frowned. "Thank you, sweetie. But how do you know all this?" Dismal flicked her long hair back proudly. "I have visions sometimes, as all true witches do. And I know that you have your world, and we have ours, and it's better off that way. Just remember that not everyone feels that way, and that doesn't make them bad, either."   
You stopped in front of the castle, gasping for breath. The young girl stopped with you, barely fazed. She turned to you and curtsied. "Good luck."

"Wait!"   
Dismal paused, and you dug around in your pocket for spare change. You handed her a few coins. "Donations, for your fund. Sorry I was too snobby to do it before."  
Dismal scoffed. "What is that, five cents?" "Okay, if you don't want it..." You shrugged and moved to put it back. "No!" She snatched it back. "Everything helps. But... just... stop Dark from whatever craziness he's trying to do. That would be the most help to us. He might be adorable, and he was a good leader once, but now he's just lost it. We stay here, you stay there. That's the way it's supposed to be. If Anti hadn't been so obsessed with taking over Jack's body and meeting you, this wouldn't have happened."  
You laughed. "This is all Anti's fault? Well. That's just typical."  
Dismal shrugged. "I guess so, but he didn't mean anything by it. He just had a thing for you, and obviously still does." You sighed. "Yea. Thanks. I think that's enough talk about relationships for one day." Despite your words, you couldn't stop your strange feeling of pleasure. Anti had done all this for you?  
Or maybe that was a lie, too. He did want Alter World to take over your world, after all- that's why he was doing all of this. Well, that was one thing you couldn't allow. For the sake of your world. For Jack's sake.  
Dismal grinned. "I do love my gossip. If you ever need more, just give me a call, girly!"  
"Thanks, but I don't think I'll be back in Alter World for a long time."  
"Okay, (Y/N), if you say so."  
You looked at her in surprise.  
"Of course I know your name, just like I figured out that you're human. Most of the Egos know by now, and we appreciate that you treat us normally. Dark might be dominating and Anti might be a little crazy, but the rest of us aren't half bad."

You smiled sadly and thought of Daisy, just trying to get through her high school years. Cobalt, who was amazing at gymnastics and sword fighting with no one to watch. And Anti, who had a big heart and a good sense of humor behind his scary exterior.  
And who also wanted your world as his own.  
You tucked the jar of dots under one arm and held your dagger in the other, just the way Anti had shown you. And so you marched onward into the castle and to the screaming mouths that begged for your pity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N): Just a few more chapters left, readers! I'm so excited to bring this story to its conclusion and I can't wait to see your reactions to my ending. <3**


	16. The World Isn't Wide Enough

The Witch's House. That's what your mind jumped to as you entered the castle. The scene where Viola has nothing but a weak light to guide her way through blood-splattered halls... except you were down a light.  
The castle was dark as pitch with no sign of the obnoxious green and red lights from before. You slashed out with the knife, listening to the comforting whizzing sound as it sliced nothing but air.  
The hall was too wide for you to feel your way along both walls, so you'd have to stick to one side. You moved to the (left or right, take your pick) side, holding the knife a few inches in front of you.   
When you'd decided to run into the castle blind, you hadn't expected to be _literally_ blind.  
You groped along the cold stones until you finally reached forward and felt nothingness. This must be a doorway. You stepped through and instantly, deep red torches flashed on all around you. Darkiplier knew that you were here.  
"Okay, who's going to perform the crazy sacrifice ritual?" you shouted out. "You? Anti?"

A deep chuckle answered you. "This is no ritual. Red is just my color."  
The office chair in front of you swiveled and Dark sat there. He was so short you hadn't even noticed him. "Are we taking on the 'threatening man in a swivel chair' look now?" you jeered.  
Dark stood. His shaking, vertigo-inducing image was even more disorienting with the red fire lighting his features.  
"I don't think you're in any position to be making taunts," he said, his voice low.   
You'd never heard Dark speak above that octave. You wondered if he even could. Ha.  
You had to mentally poke fun at the intimidating figure before you. It was how you got yourself through scary horror games, and it was how you'd get through this.  
You thrust your dagger at Dark, trying to look threatening. "Where's Jack," you demanded. Dark laughed mockingly. "Well, that's not the way to get him back."  
"I just want to see him," you said, hating how pitiful you sounded. Dark crossed his hands behind his back and tilted his head.  
"Beg."

"Excuse me?"  
"Get down on your knees and beg to see him one more time before I end both of you."  
"No!" you snapped, darting at him and holding the knife to his neck. "I'm so done with this. I finally learned to trust my own decisions, and you pull this bullshit with me? Telling me what to do. Do you know how many years it took- how many years of self-loathing and doubt? Damn you."  
Dark smirked. "That's Anti's knife. It can't hurt me, (Y/N)."   
He actually expected you to do it. He expected you to grovel at his feet.  
"I don't need it."   
You tossed the knife aside. "I will tear you apart with my own two hands. It might not kill you, but it will sure as hell put you down long enough for Jack and I to get out of here."  
Anger flashed in his red eyes. "I dare you."  
"Yay, (Y/N)!" Your head snapped up at the warm, familiar sound of the Irish voice. "I knew you could do it!"  
You squinted at the corner of the room, where the voice seemed to emanate from. "Jack?"  
He lay on the ground, hands bound. A gag hung around his neck where he'd somehow managed to pull it down.   
Dark elbowed you hard in the side and you winced, slashing out with the dagger but missing. Dark dodged out of your way easily and made his way over to Jack, refastening the gag.   
As Dark was bent over, Jack moved and kicked Dark's legs out from under him. He stumbled but didn't lose his balance, and it only seemed to make him angrier.  
You ran to untie Jack, but Dark stepped behind him, hovering his hands dangerously close to Jack's neck. "I won't hesitate to do it," he said. "You know I won't. I'm ruthless, they say."  
"Seán," you whispered, terrified.  
"I'm okay, (Y/N)," he reassured you. "Unless he decides to kill me, obviously. Then I won't be okay."  
When you turned to Dark, he simply shrugged. "Better start begging."  
Defeated, you dropped the dagger and went to your knees.

"Not on my watch."  
The torches flashed to green and illuminated Anti, who stood leaning against the doorway.   
"Anti." It came out in a quick breath, and you hadn't meant to sound so eager. "You changed your mind," you said happily. Anti approached you slowly and tilted your head down, placing a kiss on your forehead. You heard Jack begin to struggle again in the corner and you tried to pull away, but Anti ran his fingers down your face and it was distracting.  
"I'm afraid not, beautiful," Anti said with a wry smile.

Your happiness dissolved as abruptly as the ash in the emancipation grill. "What," you stated through your teeth. "So you just came to watch? Is that it?"  
"Of course not. I still want Alter World to reign, just not at your expense. I don't want to see such a strong woman reduced to begging on the ground. Now, if you'll excuse us..." Anti motioned to Dark. Dark rolled his eyes but stepped away from Jack, much to your relief.   
" I think some new details have come up that Dark and I need to discuss."

As soon as you heard Dark and Anti retreating into the hallway, you scampered over to Jack and sliced through the bindings on his hands. You weren't sure if Anti had given you this opportunity on purpose, but you were going to take it nonetheless.  
He untied the gag from around his neck and you held out a hand to help him up. He took it, but yanked you to him instead. You fell into his chest and he put his arms around you. In one breath, all of your anxiety and adrenaline washed away, replaced by an easy calmness. As long as you were in Jack's arms, nothing and no one could hurt you.  
"Are you okay?" you asked. He was the one who'd been held prisoner- if anyone should have anxiety, it was him, not you.  
He buried his face in your hair and breathed in, as if trying to absorb your very essence. "Just glad to have you back."  
Jack stood, bringing you up with him. "We need to get out of here," he said, scanning the room. That look of concentration was one that you knew well from years of playing games with him. He let you go reluctantly after entwining his fingers with yours momentarily, and began flitting around the room with purpose.

"We have to make sure we have all those marble things, otherwise the Alter Egos will be able to follow us through the portals. If we have them all, the portals will automatically close."  
You laughed so bitterly that you almost snorted. "Yea, good plan, hypothetically. Except those dots are spread all over this castle, in different offices. So we have to somehow gather them all and still keep Dark and Anti at bay."  
"We could just take them out. You've still got Anti's knife, right?"  
"Yea, but Dark's the more powerful of the two, and we don't have his."   
"I grabbed his back at that creepy old shop."  
Your mouth opened in surprise. "The pink mustache? How? Didn't Cobalt notice?"  
"Ethan 2 didn't even look twice at me. I'm sneaky like that." Jack grinned.   
"Okay then, we're ready! Let's go!" You clasped your knife in front of you and began charging out the door.   
Jack grabbed your wrist and pulled you back. "Uh, that might not work out so well. Dark took my knife."  
"Ugh!" You tucked your own dagger away. Maybe you were a little too desperate to use it.   
"Of course. Well, any other ideas?"  
"Yea, maybe. So these dot things... I was playing around with some of them and they seem to attract to certain colors like magnets." Jack fished a few out of his jeans pockets and lifted the waistband of his pants to pull out a few more. You blushed insanely. "Why would you put them there?!" "I was kidnapped. Where else would I put them?" he said with a shrug. "Anyway... watch."  
When he held up a purple dot, all of the yellow dots floated out of his pockets and attached to it. If he did the same with a green or red dot, the complimentary color attracted as well.  
"Okay, then." You held out your hand and Jack placed a blue dot in your palm. You poked your head out the doorway, holding the dot in front of you. A low rumbling noise started from somewhere down the hall. You looked back at Jack fearfully. A few orange dots floated out of his pockets and suction-cupped themselves to your blue one. "Seems to be working," he commented.

And then the door burst down.

There was a pulsating, neon orange mass of dots headed straight for you. You screeched and dropped the blue dot, darting to hide behind Jack. He took your dagger from you and held it in front of him, not that it would do much good.  
The orange mass engulfed the tiny blue dot and grew still. Just as you began to feel safe, another rumbling began- a deep bass sound. A cloud of blue broke through the wall and kept coming, ready to join its orange friends. There wouldn't be enough room for you, Jack, and the giant blob of dots. The two of you would be pushed out the window.  
You closed your eyes and braced for the impact, but none came.

"(Y/N). And... Jack. Are you okay?"  
You looked up to see that Anti stood before you, holding his hands out in front of him. An emancipation grill shimmered around the three of you. The dots continued to spread across the room, encroaching upon the border but never breaking through it.  
"Thank you, Anti," you murmured. "You saved us."   
Anti nodded and pulled you into a hug, his leather jacket crinkling under your hands as you hugged him back. "I thought about what you said. How I keep involving you- and I do, and I'm sorry."  
Your relief was so great you almost cried. "It's okay, Anti. You realized what you did wrong, and that's the first step to changing yourself."

He smiled at you.  
A drop of blood escaped from his mouth, but you knew now that it wasn't indicative of his evil nature.

"Do you really think I'm so indecisive?"   
"W-what?"  
Anti's meaning resonated with Jack before it did with you, and he reached for you protectively, ripping you from Anti's grasp.  
"He hasn't changed his mind about anything," Jack said hoarsely.  
"I'm right, (Y/N), you just haven't realized it yet. Just think about it. You've met lots of nice Egos here, right? We would be fine in your world. We'd have to make some changes, sure, but that's fine. A couple of us might go on a killing spree, but that's healthy every once in a while. Besides, what's wrong with losing a few people in your world? I mean, they're just people."  
"Just people?" you spat. "Is that what I am? Just one more dispensable person?"  
Something in Anti's eyes changed. "No, not you. Not to me."  
"Either you're lying to me now or you've changed your mind, and I don't think it's the latter. I am a person who loves her world and the amazing people in it. People like Jack." Jack smiled humbly at your mention of his name, holding your hand tighter.   
"If you take over my world, you take over me. I won't let that happen."  
"I would never try to control you, (Y/N). You know that. I love you," Anti protested.  
You shook your head. "I'm sorry, Anti. You're a part of this desolate world, and I have to let you go, too."  
It killed you to do it, but you drew your dagger and pointed it at Anti, just as he'd shown you. You weren't so eager to use it anymore, but you would if you had to. He knew it, too.  
Anti's face hardened, any sign of humor or passion gone.

"You wouldn't use that on me."  
"I would do anything for Jack, and right now he's stuck in this mess as much as I am. Do you really want to try me?"  
"You're still trapped in my barrier," he pointed out.  
You motioned with the knife. "Take it down." When you got too close to him, Anti actually took a step back. It was the first time you'd seen him afraid.  
The emancipation grill fell down around you in a shower of blue sparks and sizzling noises.  
You waited to be bombarded with glowing orbs of light, but the dots stayed in place.  
Jack held out a green dot and a yellow dot. Purple, yellow, red and green came rushing in to join the party.  
The force of the moving dots carried Dark with them. He held his own dagger close to his chest. "What have you done?" he snarled, red eyes flaring.  
"We're going home, that's what," you said quietly, gripping Jack's hand and putting your other on the squirming ball of dots. Jack did the same. "Will this even work? Are we doing it right?" he asked you.   
"You like to run in blind, right?" you questioned. "Well, that's what we're doing."  
The two of you swallowed the dots like dry pills and waited. Dark screamed and threw himself at you and Jack, but Anti simply held up a hand and Dark froze. "Anti? How are you doing that. Let me go!" Dark commanded. No magic flashed from Anti's claws, but he seemed to have Dark stuck in place all the same.  
You locked eyes with Anti, who stood calmly on the other side of the room. "Good-bye," you said softly. He smiled with those shark's teeth, and there was something new and wild in his eyes. "Don't be so quick to forget me," he said. "Although I don't think you will."  
Alter World began to pull apart like someone unraveling a wool sweater. You squinted, but you could see nothing but Anti's eyes staring at you from the remains of a dismembered world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N):  
>  Hi everyone! Just a few more chapters lol. I'm so excited!**
> 
> **Also I had a dream about Jack last night and it was so nice. Apparently he was having a pool party (does he even have a pool, idk) and myself and all the fans were there. And for some reason my parents were there so I was complaining, and then Jack was like, "But don't you want to hug your favorite shouty Irish bean?" And I was like "Um yes can I please" and he gave me a hug and it was just so nice. Yea. I hope everyone has a dream like that tonight.**
> 
> **And yes, the chapter title is a Hamilton reference. Sorry.**


	17. Maybe Of Course Will Be Our Okay

You awoke to something soft and warm moving behind you, and your brain kickstarted into action.  
What was it? Anti? Dark? A new monster? You needed to get away, you needed to-  
You looked down to see Jack sleeping peacefully beneath you. His eyelids twitched every once in a while- he was deep in REM sleep. He rolled towards you and groaned unintelligibly, his voice heavy with sleep.  
"Where are we?" you asked urgently. "What happened? Are we by the River Shannon, is the portal closed, we have to-"  
Jack's arms went around you and pulled you into his chest. His eyes opened just enough for you to see their vibrant blue color. "You're so cuddly," he murmured.   
You wished you had an eraser to wipe the intense red blush from your face. "Jack," you said softly, closing your eyes and breathing out. "I love you, but this is serious. We need to make sure everything's okay."  
You could feel his facial hair tickling your face as he brushed up against you.   
"(Y/N), we've been over this so many times," he said. "We've been home from Alter World from almost a week now, and nothing has happened."  
For the first time, you took in your surroundings. You and Jack were laying on the couch in front of the TV, where you'd fallen asleep watching the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie. You sat up. "Oh."

The two of you had indeed been home for almost a week, but you woke up consistently with nightmares. You always thought you were back in Alter World, and that every imaginable evil was trying to take Jack away from you.  
In reality, after your fall-out with Anti the two of you had been whisked away through the portal. You'd landed in the river and the portal had closed up without a trace. All of the colorful blobs of dots came through too. Some of them hit the water and dissolved in bursts of bubbles. The rest had floated up into the sky and you'd watched them go, until they were small enough that someone might mistake them for balloons.  
The only thing left from your adventure was Anti's dagger. You'd wanted to leave it by the riverbank at first, but you were reluctant to let it go. Maybe you needed a reminder that everything you and Jack went through was real.

That first night, you'd sat anxiously with Jack, waiting for the stroke of midnight. You grasped him way too tightly, as if your love alone could keep Anti from trying to take him again.  
Midnight struck and nothing came.  
12:01.  
12:02.  
12:03.  
"You're safe," you cried out in relief. "I'm free," Jack corrected.

Jack had wanted to go back to recording videos right away. He'd already missed a few days worth of uploads. Fans were concerned about not hearing from him, but encouraged him to take a break if he needed one.  
The morning after your return from Alter World, Jack had stumbled almost drunkenly to his computer. "Time to start recording," he mumbled, barely able to keep his eyes open. "Oh no you don't."  
You had grabbed his arm and pulled him away. "But- (Y/N)- I miss it-" he protested. "I know. But your fans don't want to see you in this state, trust me. You're exhausted! You've been fighting off..." You swallowed hard, unwilling to say his name.  
"You've been fighting off your Alter Ego for days. Plus you had that little sleepwalking stint in there too. And hey, I'm taking some time off from the book shop, so we can just chill together. What do you say?"  
You and Jack took a day off to play games and talk, but by the third day he got antsy and went back to recording.  
You went back to work too, and life had returned to some semblance of normality.

Excluding, of course, your constant nightmares and the strange feeling that you were being watched.  
Jack had already finished his recording for the day and the two of you had fallen asleep on the couch, leading to yet another one of your nightmares.  
"I'm sorry, Jack," you said, running a hand over your face in frustration.   
"Don't worry." Jack smiled. "It's my job to take care of you, and if that means reassuring you that I'm still here, well..." He kissed you on the forehead. "That's what I'll do."  
Jack's smile was as contagious as always, and soon your fears were melting away. "You know what we need?" Jack sat up, bringing you with him.  
"Food."   
You scrambled off his lap so he could get up and go to the fridge, but he scooped you up and threw you over his shoulder. "Ah!" you squealed, blood rushing to your head. You clambered backwards over his shoulder and settled into a more comfortable position.   
Jack opened the freezer with his foot so he wouldn't have to let go of you.  
"Hmm, no frozen pizza," he said sadly. He looked down at you suddenly, eyes sparkling. "Oh no," you said with a smirk. "That's your idea face."  
"We're going to make our own pizza."

You laughed. "What? Do I look like a pizza chef?"  
"No, but neither do I. Have you ever seen a green-haired pizza chef?" You giggled. "Come on!" he said. "Haven't you always wanted to spin the pizza dough on your hand and stuff like they do in movies?"  
"...Yea, I guess I have."  
"Okay then! Who the hell is stopping us?"

You and Jack gathered olive oil, salt, sugar, yeast, and the other ingredients you would need. You made a quick run for sauce and cheese while Jack mixed the dough. "Don't screw it up," you warned. "And don't you DARE do the spinny part without me!"  
The grocery store was close enough that you could walk there, and the walk did wonders for your mental state. You hated exercise, but you didn't mind walking. It was raining, as always, but the wet ground and the pattering of the rain drops reminded you of where you were and who you were with. You were finally in a good place, and you wouldn't let the nightmares change that.

It turned out that spinning the pizza dough wasn't necessary for the recipe and might actually make things harder. Naturally, you and Jack decided to do it anyway.  
"Okay." Jack put the pizza dough on one finger and it immediately flopped over. He gave it a few spins and effectively poked a bunch of holes in it. "Damn."   
"Okay, I have a better idea," you decided. "Do you remember that old kid's game with the pizza chef, Pizza Pile-Up or something like that?"  
"No."  
"Well, it was a thing. So you would try to put as many toppings on his pizza as possible until it fell over."  
Jack grinned. "I like where this is going."  
You picked up the ruined wad of dough and laid it on the counter to knead it out again.  
Then you splayed your hand out and placed the dough gently on top of it, nodding to Jack. "Pizza Pile-Up. Go."  
He began throwing tomatoes, sausage, pineapple, and the like at you, purposefully being careless so that some would splatter on you. "Hey! This isn't a pie throwing contest!" you complained, tossing pineapple back at him.  
"Besides, pineapple on pizza is gross."  
Jack gaped at you. "Take that back right now!" He stole the pizza and began loading it with pineapple.   
"Heeeeey!" You threw your arms around him and clung to him, trying to weigh him down so he couldn't grab more toppings.  
Instead of struggling, he gave in and turned to you, grabbing you by the shoulders. He switched your positions so that he was now the one pressing you into the counter.  
He placed his hands on either side of you so you had nowhere to go but towards him. Not that you minded.  
You leaned forward and gave him a peck on the nose, but he wasn't satisfied.  
He lifted his hands only to run them back down your sides, making you shiver.  
Finally he leaned in and brought his mouth to yours, stealing your lips as he'd stolen your heart all those years ago. He held it still, and you knew in that moment that you would do anything to make him as happy as he made you.

The pizza barely tasted like pizza. After being tossed around, loaded with pineapple, and then burnt in the oven, it was pretty horrible. "You don't have to eat it, (Y/N). It sucks," Jack said, going for the cookies instead. "We worked so hard on it! I won't waste it. Plus, even if it doesn't taste good, it was still made with love, so it's a good pizza in my book."  
"I think you're overthinking this. It's just pizza."  
You feigned shedding a tear. "Not to me."  
Jack raised an eyebrow at you.  
You sighed and gave in to the cookies.

Burnt pizza and too many cookies, that was your dinner. But you were back home in Ireland, you were with the person you loved most in the world, and all felt right.  
After you'd finished eating, you two were silent for a while. Jack might be famous for his loud voice and energetic attitude on YouTube, but in real life, Seán knew when to appreciate the quiet moments.  
He finally broke the stillness. "(Y/N), what do you think of England?" You looked at him curiously. "What do I think of it? Um, it's nice. Kind of rainy, just like Athlone. Why?"  
"I don't know, I just feel like it's time for a change. A new chapter in our lives."  
"You mean you want to move there?"  
"Does that sound okay to you?"  
You considered it, then tilted your head in agreement. "Yea. Sounds fun, actually. Like an adventure!"  
You cleared your throat. "Speaking of adventures and stuff, there's something I wanted to talk to you about. And it's kind of a big deal."  
Jack stared at you expectantly, but you took a moment to glance out the window and gather your thoughts. The sun was setting over Athlone, bathing everything in a mix of color that reminded you of melted crayons.

You'd been hesitant to acknowledge these thoughts, even to yourself, but you knew Jack would understand not to push you. He never did.  
"I think I know what I want to do with my life."  
Saying it aloud was such a scary thing- so striking and definite.

People in today's society are terrified of seeing their world turn into a dystopian novel- and yet, is it really so far off? Forced to decide what they want to do and who they want to be at such a young age... making the wrong choice might ruin their life forever.  
But you didn't have to be certain. It wasn't a life or death choice, it was just a path to pursue. You could change your mind at any time. A warm feeling spread through your chest. It was nice to trust your own decisions.  
"I want to write for video games."  
You looked back at Jack, trying to gauge his reaction. There was no judgement in his eyes.  
"If it's what you love, then do it," he said with a smile. "You write the games and I'll play them, how about that! Then you'll have the Jacksepticeye name attached and... boom! Publicity!"  
You hit him playfully on the arm. "Hey, I'm being serious! I love games, and after everything we've been through... I have a lot of ideas."  
Jack pulled you into a hug. "It suits you, (Y/N). And you know that you have my support one hundred percent, no matter what."  
"You trust me to do this by myself?" you questioned.   
"No one ever said you have to do it by yourself. I know that not many people have been there for you in your life, (Y/N). But I am. So the real question is, do you trust me to be there for you?"  
"...Of course."

Once Jack passed out on the couch again, you retreated to your room to watch some Jacksepticeye videos. Maybe it was a bit ironic, but you were still a fan. He gave off a different kind of energy on screen, and plus, you loved watching playthroughs.  
"YouTube," you whispered happily as you opened it on your computer. "We've been apart for so long! Have you missed me?" you cried dramatically.   
You began watching a more recent Reading Your Comments- a video he'd recorded during the whole Anti fiasco, but before he'd come to Alter World with you. You could tell that he seemed kind of off in the video; he must've been worrying about you.  
You blinked and yawned, checking the time. It was late, but you could watch just a few more, right?   
You decided to rewatch his playthrough of Little Nightmares.  
You pulled your blanket close to you, tucking your feet under carefully as you always did with horror games. Blankets are obviously great protection against monsters.

Well, maybe not all monsters.

The video began to lag slightly and you paused so it could load. A streak of static shot across the screen.  
You blinked and shook your head. _Stupid defective computer._  
You continued watching until the video cut to black.   
A strangled laugh escaped from the computer. You ripped your headphones out and scuttled back, your breathing labored. But you could still hear it. That laugh. It was familiar, and a single name was whirling through your mind.  
But you couldn't think it. You'd promised never to think that name again.   
It was over. Over.  
The high-pitched laugh echoed again, so familiar but yet tinged with something foreign, something unreal, something...  
Deranged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(A/N):**  
>  Cliffhanger, sorry! But lots of fluff this chapter, hopefully you liked that.  
> And yes, the chapter title is a reference to Fault In Our Stars. These references will be the death of me, I swear, but I just love them so much! 


	18. Always Watching

Your heart pounded in your throat, and you tasted copper in your mouth. No, not copper- blood, blood like when he kissed you, a taste that made you feel lightheaded and sick.  
"Séan!" you yelled, waiting for him to come running into your room like always. But you didn't hear his footsteps, his reassuring voice...  
Nothing.  
You swallowed hard and rose on shaky legs, ready to go look for him.  
"Where are YOU going?!"  
You let out a strangled cry of terror and whipped back to the computer screen. The video claimed to be on pause, but it was moving nonetheless.  
Anti flickered in and out of focus on the screen, his image distorted by the disruptive static. Blood ran from his eyes and mouth, and he did nothing to wipe it away as he had every time before.   
"You might want to..." you whispered, motioning to your own mouth politely.  
Anti's laugh was like knives, slicing too close to your ears. He raised a clawed hand to his face, but instead of wiping it, he smeared it so that it ran down his face in streaks. You realized you were trembling. "Stop. Please stop," you mouthed.  
You looked at him pleadingly, but it was hard to. You couldn't focus on his eyes because the sharp and intelligent green pupils had disappeared. They were consumed by black now, bottomless and demonic.  
But the worst part of all was how the static demented his voice into something from hell. "STOP?!" he screeched. Anti's voice wasn't menacingly quiet anymore. He sounded like a madman. "You want ME to listen to YOU?!?!" His voice cracked, but it only made him laugh harder. "This is your fault, all YOUR fault," he snarled. "I thought I BELONGED somewhere. I thought I finally mattered to someone. You LEFT me. WHY would you do that to me!?" He screamed outright, a piercing sound, and you flinched back. "Are you SCARED yet, (Y/N)? (Y/N), (Y/N), (Y/N)," he said, echoing himself. "That name makes me want to kill."   
"You're better than this, Anti," you said hoarsely. "You know why I had to do it. Maybe if you could just forgive me, we could-"  
It was the wrong thing to say.

"I don't DO forgiveness!" he cried. "Not anymore. Not for YOU, and not for JACK. Everything you love, everyone you care for. Start saying your good-byes, (Y/N). Because I will end it ALL." He threw his head back and laughed again, then grabbed fistfuls of his hair and let out an anguished cry. "You ruined me," he whispered. A tear snaked traitorously down your face. "Anti, I'm sorry-"  
"SoRrY?!" A knife appeared in his hand, stained with blood- whose? His? You didn't know.  
He thrust his arm back and let the knife fly so that it landed squarely in the middle of the screen. The screen shattered outwards and you screamed yourself hoarse, clambering back onto your bed and flattening yourself to the wall in fear.   
"What happened to my Anti?" you whispered. "The one with a good heart."   
"YOU BROKE HIM!" Anti shrieked accusingly. "What do you think NOW? That I'm so different, that I'm almost HUMAN?! That you could LOVE ME?!"   
Anti's image appeared back on the screen, still distorted by static and now fragmented, too.  
"I never loved you," you said, and of that you were sure. "I've always loved Jack. Yes, you were different and dangerous, and I thought I wanted that. But you were always too unstable. I thought I could care for you, make you better, but you were already too broken."  
"You won't be the last one to make that mistake. There are SO many others now. Do you think this is the last you'll see of me? Oh, no, no, NO." He giggled maniacally.  
"There's a new world that belongs to me now, and it's through YOUR screen. I can watch so many people, BREAK so many people. But I'll never forget the one who broke my heart."  
He grinned with those shark's teeth, letting them drip blood freely now, and you closed your eyes against the fear. This amused him anew and he let out another scream of laughter. "You can close your eyes to me, but I can always see YOU, (Y/N). And I WON'T let you FORGET! Just when you start to, I'll come BACK, and it'll drive you CrAzY with paranoia. Maybe your heart won't belong to me, but your MIND WILL!" His voice shot upwards in volume on the last two syllables, and you threw your hands over your ears. If you couldn't see him or hear his taunts, he couldn't get to you.

You waited for a few minutes and when you felt safe, you removed your hands and let out a deep breath.  
One last echo of laughter sent another jolt of fear through your heart, but when you opened your eyes, Anti was gone.   
Your computer screen was spider-webbed with cracks and pieces of broken glass, sizzling with static, and a knife was stuck through the screen from the inside. You approached it with caution, looking for the knife hilt to pull it out, but it seemed to come straight out from the screen.  
You reached forward, unthinking, and tried to pull it out from the blade, slicing your hand. "Shit," you said, wincing.

Jack burst through the door and you startled.  
"(Y/N)," he cried, rushing to you and pulling you close. "You're alive. Thank God. He's back. I don't know how, but Anti followed us here."  
He looked down at your hand, his worried face turning cold. "Did he do that to you?"  
You were terrified, and you had every right to be. You'd unintentionally broken the heart of a powerful, psycho being who was now coming after you. But you weren't going to sit down on the ground and cry. You couldn't let Jack solve all your problems. Not this time.  
You took a deep breath. "No, I was a dumbass and tried to pull it out. I did this." You moved purposefully towards the bathroom to wash your hand, but Jack pulled you back.  
He looked at you expectantly.   
"Um..."  
Why was he looking at you like that?  
Finally, you asked, "Can you still hear him? In your head. Anti, I mean."  
Jack shook his head. "When we closed the portal, I felt our connection cut. We're totally separate now. Maybe that's why he went all crazy."  
"No," you insisted. "It's my fault. I did this, and I'm going to fix it."   
"(Y/N)," Jack said softly. "Trusting your own decisions doesn't mean doing everything on your own, remember? We're in this together. We're gonna beat him."  
He frowned, looking upwards in thought. "Hey, where'd you put that dagger? I have an idea."  
"By the TV, I think," you said absently.

As soon as Jack left, you heard that echoing laugh again. "You think that if you team up, you'll be a match for ME?!" Anti flickered back onto the screen for a heartbeat, just long enough to grin at you. "Oh, how FUN. I can't wait to see you again, my (Y/N)."  
Jack came back in and your eyes flitted over to him. When you looked back again, Anti was gone. "Did you hear him?" you asked desperately. "This can't just be in my head. Jack, he's never going to leave me alone!"  
Jack examined the dagger. "I think he's attached to this."  
"What?"  
"You know how ghosts sometimes attach themselves to objects when they can't move on? I think that's what Anti did."  
"Then we burn it," you said instantly.   
A scream burst from your computer, and you grabbed for Jack's hand. He dropped the dagger.  
"THIS is my realm now," Anti screeched, gesturing to the computer that he stood inside. "Destroying THAT will do NOTHING! Silly humans."  
"We outsmarted you last time," Jack retorted. "So who's the stupid one, really?"  
Anti cracked his neck violently, and you shuddered. He smirked at your reaction. "We'll see." Another burst of static and he was gone.  
You pressed closer to Jack. "We'll best him, right?"  
"Don't we always?" he answered, giving you a reassuring smile. "He can't actually hurt us from inside a screen. And you and I both know that we're amazing at beating enemies on a screen."  
"Only when we're together," you said worriedly. "If he separates us, we're done for."

Jack tilted your head up and placed a soft kiss on your lips. "Then we won't separate. Easy."  
"Promise?"  
"Of course."  
"Then let's kick some Alter Ego ass."


	19. Thank You!

Hello everyone, and congratulations on reaching the end of the fic that brought me months and months of writing pleasure! Did it take way too long for me to finish? Yep. In my eyes, was it worth it? Oh God yes.

I've never thought so intricately about a plot, nor written in such a mature style- or at least, I haven't for a very long time. I learned so much about world building and the importance of a sound main character in writing this fic (I'm not trying to brag here, just telling you what I've learned.) If you couldn't tell, (Y/N) is no generic character. I'm almost positive that she would not fit every reader's personality because she became a character herself, albeit one without a name. Fierce and stubborn and sometimes stupid, ready to defend herself and those she loves, and always ready to play video games.

Alter World was such a fun setting to play with, and I'm positive I'll be returning to it in the future (maybe in a Darkiplier X Reader, maybe in a sequel to this story, maybe something else. Who knows.)  
From creating transportation between the worlds like the portal and the dots, to original characters like Daisy, Blanch, and Dismal to the constant ashy grayness of the world, I loved all of it. If you are a writer and you have never built your own world for your OCs or characters to play in, you definitely should. You will get lost there in the best possible way, I guarantee it.

While I tried to keep Jack's personality as realistic as possible, it was really fun for me to re-imagine Dark and Anti. Dark took on more of a villainous personality in this fic, and I tried not to tell his story too much because I plan on writing a fic about him in the future. But I loved working with Anti. His black claws, his inverted black and green eyes, the blood dripping from his mouth and shark's teeth... all key aspects that I automatically thought of when I thought of Anti, even before I started this fic.

This fic was also kind of an experiment of mine with heroes, villains, and antiheroes and what draws the line between the three.  
Anti is, obviously, something of an antihero who had his heart broken and became the villain. From Phantom of the Opera to The Avengers' Loki to Megamind and literally everything in between, I love everything with a misunderstood villainous love interest, and was so excited to explore this concept with Anti. I hope I did him justice.

I know that this fic didn't get as much instant attention as my other fic, In Another Life, but that's okay with me. I enjoyed writing it so much and it's really improved my skills as a writer. In Another Life was mostly pure fluff and included scenes that hopefully made readers very happy, whereas this story was more raw and real. We don't always get the happily ever after, and we're usually still haunted by our mistakes. But stories without happy endings have always been some of my favorites because of how real they are, which is probably why this was so fun to write.  
Sorry for all the nerdy writer stuff there- but I am a nerdy writer, after all.

Obviously, I hope this story picks up speed in the future, but it's okay if it doesn't. Thank you so much to everyone who's read it, especially those who've kept up with it. I have just a few special mentions to readers of this fic on Wattpad who have given it continuous reads, favorites, and support:  
@AntiSepticEyeIsHere  
@bassclarinetplayer_1  
@chameleon22  
@EvidentCubbles  
@Snowswirly  
And of course, my best friend on Wattpad and my constant supporter @Dallekah who encouraged my love of Jacksepticeye and Markiplier in the first place! Thank you so much girly, you are the best! ❤️

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this fic and to support it! I love seeing all of your comments- it's so exciting to see what you think of my writing.  
I wasn't planning on writing a sequel to this fic because I wanted to do something with Darkiplier. I kind of wanted to end this with an "I'm always watching" vibe, but I also wanted you and Jack to end up together. I think I accomplished both of those things, but now I'm thinking it might need a sequel anyway. Let me know what you think.  
See you all in the next story!


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